i^^'v 


1 

1 

a  \ 

A 

American 

©ILD 


ELIZABETH 
M^SCRACKEN 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.arcliive.org/details/americancliildbyeOOmccrricli 


Page  18. 


COMPANIONS  AND  FRIENDS 


THE 
AMERICAN  CHILD 

BY 

ELIZABETH  McCRACKEN 

With  Illustrations  from  photographs 
by  Alice  Austin 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


•  '•  »     »  • 


^^'t-^ 


COPYRIGHT,   191 2,  BY  THK  OUTLOOK  COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT,   I913,  BY  ELIZABETH  MCCRACKEN 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  March  ZQ13 


TO 
MY  FATHER  AND  MOTHER 


259899 


PREFACE 

The  purpose  of  this  preface  is  that  of 
every  preface  —  to  say  "  thank  you  "  to  the 
persons  who  have  helped  in  the  making  of 
the  book. 

I  would  render  thanks  first  of  all  to  the 
Editors  of  the  "Outlook"  for  permission  to 
reprint  the  chapters  of  the  book  which 
appeared  as  articles  in  the  monthly  magazine 
numbers  of  their  publication. 

I  return  thanks  also  to  Miss  Rosamond 
F.  Rothery,  Miss  Sara  Cone  Bryant,  Miss 
Agnes  F.  Perkins,  and  Mr.  Ferris  Greens- 
let.  Without  the  help  and  encouragement 
of  all  of  these,  the  book  never  would  have 
been  written. 

Finally,  I  wish  to  say  an  additional  word 
of  thanks  to  my  physician,  Dr.  John  E.  Still- 
well.  Had  it  not  been  for  his  consummate 
skill  and  untiring  care  after  an  accident, 
which,  four  years  ago,  made  me  a  year-long 
hospital  patient,  I  should  never  have  lived 
to  write  anything.  E.  McC. 

Cambridge,  January,  1913 


CONTENTS 


Introduction          .... 

.    xiii 

I.   The  Child  at  Home 

I 

II.   The  Child  at  Play 

•     30 

III.   The  Country  Child 

60 

V  IV.   The  Child  in  School    . 

.     90 

V.   The  Child  in  the  Library 

119 

VI.   The  Child  in  Church  . 

.   148 

Conclusion          .         .         .         . 

178 

ILLUSTRATIONS 

Companions  and  friends         .  Frontispiece 

Three  small  girls     ....  8 

The  boy  of  the  house  .  .  .  .18 
"  Did  you  play  it  this  way  ? "  .         .  42 

The  dear  delights  of  playing  alone  .  54 
*'  The  children  —  they  are  such  dears  "    66 

A  SMALL  country  BOY        .  .  .  .       8o 

Arrayed  in  spotless  white  .  .  86 
They  paint  pictures  as  a  regular  part 

of  their  school  routine  .  .  98 
They  DO  so  MANY  THINGS !  .  .  .104 
They  have  so  many  things!  .  .  116 
The  story  hour  in  the  children's  room  126 
The  children's  edition  .         .         ,  140 

In  the  infant  class  .  .  .  .150 
"  Do  you  like  my  new  hymn?"  .  .166 
Children  go  to  church     .         .         .       172 


INTRODUCTION 

One  day  several  years  ago,  when  Mr. 
Lowes  Dickinson's  statement  that  he  had 
found  no  conversation  and  —  worse  still  — 
no  conversationalists  in  America  was  fresh 
in  our  outraged  minds,  I  happened  to  meet 
an  English  woman  who  had  spent  approx- 
imately the  same  amount  of  time  in  our  coun- 
try as  had  Mr.  Lowes  Dickinson.  "  What 
has  been  your  experience  ? "  I  anxiously  asked 
her.  "  Is  it  true  that  we  only  *  talk  *  ?  Can  it 
really  be  that  we  never  '  converse  *  ?  " 

"  Dear  me,  no  !  "  she  exclaimed  with  grati- 
fying fervor.  "  You  are  the  most  delightful 
conversationalists  in  the  world,  on  your  own 
subject  — " 

"  Our  own  subject  ?  "  I  echoed. 

"  Certainly,"  she  returned ;  "  your  own 
subject,  the  national  subject,  —  the  child,  the 
American  child.  It  is  possible  to  *  converse ' 
with  any  American  on  that  subject;  every 
one   of  you  has  something  to  say  on  it; 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

and  every  one  of  you  will  listen  eagerly  to 
what  any  other  person  says  on  it.  You  modify 
the  opinions  of  your  hearers  by  what  you  say ; 
and  you  actually  allow  your  own  opinions  to 
be  modified  by  what  you  hear  said.  If  that 
is  conversation,  without  a  doubt  you  have  it 
in  America,  and  have  it  in  as  perfect  a  state 
as  conversation  ever  was  had  anywhere.  But 
you  have  it  only  on  that  subject.  I  wonder 
why,"  she  went  on,  half-musingly,  before  I 
could  make  an  attempt  to  persuade  her  to 
quahfy  her  rather  sweeping  assertion.  "  It 
may  be  because  you  do  so  much  for  children, 
in  America.  They  are  always  on  your  mind  ; 
they  are  hardly  ever  out  of  your  sight.  You 
are  forever  either  doing  something  for  them, 
or  planning  to  do  something  for  them.  No 
wonder  the  child  is  your  one  subject  of  con- 
versation. You  do  so  very  much,  for  children 
in  America,"  she  repeated. 

Few  of  us  will  agree  with  the  English 
woman  that  the  child,  the  American  child, 
is  the  only  subject  upon  which  we  converse. 
Certainly,  though,  it  is  a  favorite  subject ;  it 
may  even  not  inaptly  be  called  our  national 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

subject.  Whatevcrour  various  views  concern- 
ing this  may  chance  to  be,  however,  it  is 
likely  that  we  are  all  in  entire  agreement  with 
regard  to  the  other  matter  touched  upon  by 
the  English  woman, — the  pervasiveness  of 
American  children.  Is  it  not  true  that  we 
keep  them  continually  in  mind  ;  that  we  sel- 
dom let  them  go  quite  out  of  sight ;  that  we 
are  always  doing,  or  planning  to  do,  some- 
thing for  them  ?  What  is  it  that  we  would 
do  ?  And  why  is  it  that  we  try  so  unceasingly 
to  do  it  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  desire  with  a  great 
desire  to  make  the  boys  and  girls  do;  that 
all  of  the  "  very  much  "  that  we  do  for  them 
is  done  in  order  to  teach  them  just  that  — 
to  do.  It  is  a  large  and  many-sided  and  vari- 
colored desire,  and  to  follow  its  leadings  is 
an  arduous  labor  ;  but  is  there  one  of  us  who 
knows  a  child  well  who  has  not  this  desire, 
and  who  does  not  cheerfully  perform  that 
labor  ?  Having  decided  in  so  far  as  we  are 
able  what  were  good  to  do,  we  try,  not  only 
to  do  it  ourselves,  in  our  grown-up  way,  but 
so  to  train  the  children  that  they,  too,  may 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

do  it,  in  their  childish  way.  The  various 
means  that  we  find  most  helpful  to  the  end  of 
our  own  doing  we  secure  for  the  children, — 
adapting  them,  simplifying  them,  and  even 
re-shaping  them,  that  the  boys  and  girls  may 
use  them  to  the  full. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  certain  impersonal 
quality  in  a  great  deal  of  what  we,  in  America, 
do  for  children.  It  is  not  based  so  much  on 
friendship  for  an  individual  child  as  on  a 
sense  of  responsibility  for  the  well-being  of 
all  childhood,  especially  all  childhood  in  our 
own  country.  But  most  of  what  we  do,  after 
all,  we  do  for  the  boys  and  girls  whom  we 
know  and  love ;  and  we  do  it  because  they 
are  our  friends,  and  we  wish  them  to  share 
in  the  good  things  of  our  lives,  —  our  work 
and  our  play.  To  what  amazing  lengths  we 
sometimes  go  in  this  "  doing  for  "  the  chil- 
dren of  our  circles  ! 

One  Saturday  afternoon,  only  a  few  weeks 
ago,  I  saw  at  the  annual  exhibit  of  the  State 
Board  of  Health,  a  man,  one  of  my  neigh- 
bors, with  his  little  eight-year  old  boy.  The 
exhibit  consisted  of  the  customary  display 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

of  charts  and  photographs,  showing  the  na- 
ture of  the  year's  work  in  relation  to  the  milk 
supply,  the  water  supply,  the  housing  of  the 
poor,  and  the  prevention  of  contagious  dis- 
eases. My  neighbor  is  not  a  specialist  in  any 
one  of  these  matters  ;  his  knowledge  is  merely 
that  of  an  average  good  citizen.  He  went 
from  one  subject  to  the  other,  studying  them. 
His  boy  followed  close  beside  him,  looking 
where  his  father  looked,  —  if  with  a  lesser 
interest  at  the  charts,  with  as  great  an  intent- 
ness  at  the  photographs.  As  they  made  their 
way  about  the  room  given  over  to  the  ex- 
hibit, they  talked,  the  boy  asking  questions, 
the  father  endeavoring  to  answer  them. 

The  small  boy  caught  sight  of  me  as  I  stood 
before  one  of  the  charts  relating  to  the  pre- 
vention of  contagious  diseases,  and  ran  across 
the  room  to  me.  "  What  are_yo«  looking  at  ? " 
he  said.  "  That !  It  shows  how  many  people 
were  vaccinated,  does  n't  it  ?  Come  over  here 
and  see  the  pictures  of  the  calves  the  doctors 
get  the  stuff  to  vaccinate  with  from  ! " 

"  Is  n't  this  an  odd  place  for  a  little  boy 
on  a  Saturday  afternoon  ? "  I  remarked  to 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

my  neighbor,  a  little  later,  when  the  boy  had 
roamed  to  the  other  side  of  the  room,  out  of 
hearing. 

"  Not  at  all !  "  asserted  the  child's  father. 
"  He  was  inquiring  the  other  day  why  he  had 
been  vaccinated,  why  all  the  children  at  school 
had  been  vaccinated.  Just  before  that,  he  had 
asked  where  the  water  in  the  tap  came  from. 
This  is  just  the  place  for  him  right  now ! 
It  is  n't  odd  at  all  for  him  to  be  here  on  a 
Saturday  afternoon.  It  is  much  odder  for 
me^'  he  continued  with  a  smile.  "  I  'd  natur- 
ally be  playing  golf!  But  when  children  begin 
to  ask  questions,  one  has  to  do  something 
about  answering  them  ;  and  coming  here 
seemed  to  be  the  best  way  of  answering  these 
newest  questions  of  my  boy's.  I  want  him  to 
learn  about  the  connection  of  the  state  with 
these  things ;  so  he  will  be  ready  to  do  his  part 
in  them,  when  he  gets  to  the  'voting  age.'  " 

"  But  can  he  understand,  yet  ?  "  I  ven- 
tured. 

"  More  than  if  he  had  n't  seen  all  this, 
and  heard  about  what  it  means,"  my  neigh- 
bor replied. 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

It  is  not  unnatural,  when  a  child  asks 
questions  so  great  and  so  far-reaching  as 
those  my  neighbor's  small  boy  had  put  to 
him,  that  we  should  "  do  something  about 
answering  them,"  —  something  as  vivid  as 
may  be  within  our  power.  But,  even  when 
the  queries  are  of  a  minor  character,  we  still 
bestir  ourselves  until  they  are  adequately 
answered. 

"  Mamma,"  I  heard  a  little  girl  inquire 
recently,  as  she  fingered  a  scrap  of  pink 
gingham  of  which  her  mother  was  making 
"  rompers  "  for  the  baby  of  the  family, "  why 
are  the  threads  of  this  cloth  pink  when  you 
unravel  it  one  way,  and  white  when  you  un- 
ravel it  the  other  ?  " 

The  mother  was  busy  ;  but  she  laid  aside 
her  sewing  and  explained  to  the  child  about 
the  warp  and  the  woof  in  weaving. 

"  I  don't  quile  see  why  that  makes  the 
threads  pink  one  way  and  white  the  other," 
the  little  girl  said,  perplexedly,  when  the  ex- 
planation was  finished. 

"  When  you  go  to  kindergarten,  you  will," 
I  suggested. 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

"  But  I  want  to  know  now,"  the  child 
demurred. 

The  next  day  I  got  for  the  little  girl  at  a 
"kindergarten  supply  "  establishment  a  box 
of  the  paper  woofs  and  warps,  so  well-known 
to  kindergarten  pupils.  Not  more  than  three 
or  four  days  elapsed  before  I  took  them  to 
the  child;  but  I  found  that  her  busy  mother 
had  already  provided  her  with  some  ;  pink 
and  white,  moreover,  among  other  colors ; 
and  had  taught  the  little  girl  how  to  weave 
with  them. 

"  She  understands,  now,  why  the  threads 
of  pink  gingham  are  pink  one  way  and  white 
the  other  1 "  the  mother  observed. 

"  Why  did  you  go  to  such  trouble  to  teach 
her?"  I  asked  with  some  curiosity. 

"  Well,"  the  mother  returned,  "  she  will 
have  to  buy  gingham  some  time.  She  will  be 
a  grown-up  '  woman  who  spends  '  some  day ; 
and  she  will  do  the  spending  the  better  for 
knowing  just  what  she  is  buying,  —  what  it 
is  made  of,  and  how  It  is  made ! " 

It  is  no  new  thing  for  fathers  and  mothers 
to  think  more  of  the  future  than  of  the 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

present  in  their  dealings  with  their  boys  and 
girls.  Parents  of  all  times  and  in  all  coun- 
tries have  done  this.  It  seems  to  me,  how- 
ever, that  American  fathers  and  mothers  of 
to-day,  unlike  those  of  any  other  era  or  na- 
tion, think,  in  training  their  children,  of 
what  one  might  designate  as  a  most  minutely 
detailed  future.  The  mother  of  whom  I  have 
been  telling  wished  to  teach  her  little  girl  not 
only  how  to  buy,  but  how  to  buy  gingham  ; 
and  the  father  desired  his  small  boy  to  learn 
not  alone  that  his  state  had  a  board  of  health, 
but  that  he  might  hope  to  become  a  mem- 
ber of  a  particular  department  of  it. 

We  occasionally  hear  elderly  persons  ex- 
claim that  children  of  the  present  day  are 
taught  a  great  many  things  that  did  not  enter 
into  the  education  of  their  grandparents,  or 
even  of  their  parents.  But,  on  investigation, 
we  scarcely  find  that  this  is  the  case.  What  we 
discover  is  that  the  children  of  to-day  are 
taught,  not  new  lessons,  but  the  old  lessons 
by  a  new  method.  Sewing,  for  example :  little 
girls  no  longer  make  samplers,  working  on 
them  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  in  "cross- 


xxii  INTRODUCTION 

stitch  ** ;  they  learn  to  do  cross-stitch  letters, 
only  they  learn  not  by  working  the  entire 
alphabet  on  a  square  of  linen  merely  avail- 
able to  "learn  on,"  but  by  working  the  in- 
itials of  a  mother  or  an  aunt  on  a  "guest 
towel,"  which  later  serves  as  a  Christmas  or 
a  birthday  gift  of  the  most  satisfactory  kind ! 
Perhaps  one  of  the  best  things  we  do  for  the 
little  girls  of  our  families  is  to  teach  them  to 
take  their  first  stitches  to  some  definite  end. 
Certainly  we  do  it  with  as  conscientious  a  care 
as  ever  watched  over  the  stitches  of  the  little 
girls  of  old  as  they  made  the  faded  samplers 
we  cherish  so  affectionately. 

The  brothers  of  these  little  girls  learned 
carpentry,  when  they  were  old  enough  to 
handle  tools  with  safety.  The  boys  of  to-day 
also  learn  it;  some  of  them  begin  long  before 
they  can  handle  any  tools  with  safety,  and 
when  they  can  handle  no  tool  at  all  except 
a  hammer.  As  soon  as  they  wish  to  drive 
nails,  they  are  allowed  to  drive  them,  and 
taught  to  drive  them  to  some  purpose.  I 
happened  not  a  great  while  ago  to  pass  the 
day  at  the  summer  camp  of  a  friend  of  mine 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 

who  is  the  mother  of  a  small  boy,  aged  five. 
My  friend's  husband  was  constructing  a 
rustic  bench. 

The  little  boy  watched  for  a  time ;  then, 
"  Daddy,  /  want  to  put  in  nails,"  he  said. 

"All  right,"  replied  his  father;  "you 
may.  Just  wait  a  minute  and  I  '11  let  you 
have  the  hammer  and  the  nails.  Your  mother 
wants  some  nails  in  the  kitchen  to  hang  the 
tin  things  on.  If  she  will  show  you  where  she 
wants  them,  I  '11  show  you  how  to  put  them 
in." 

This  was  done,  with  much  gayety  on  the 
part  of  us  all.  When  the  small  boy,  tutored 
by  his  father,  had  driven  in  all  the  required 
nails,  he  lifted  a  triumphant  face  to  his  mo- 
ther. "  There  they  are ! "  he  exclaimed. 
"  Now  let 's  hang  the  tin  things  on  them, 
and  see  how  they  look !  " 

The  boy's  father  did  not  finish  the  rustic 
bench  that  day.  When  a  neighboring  camper, 
who  stopped  in  to  call  toward  the  end  of 
the  afternoon,  expressed  surprise  at  his  ap- 
parent dilatoriness,  and  asked  for  an  explana- 
tion, the  father  simply  said,  "  I  did  mean  to 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION 

finish  it  to-day,  but  I  had  to  do  something 
for  my  boy  instead." 

One  of  the  things  we  grown-ups  do  for 
children  that  has  been  rather  severely  criti- 
cized is  the  lavishing  upon  them  of  toys, — 
intricate  and  costly  toys.  "  What,  as  a  child, 
I  used  to  pretend  the  toys  I  had,  were,  the 
toys  my  children  have  now,  are !  **  an  ac- 
quaintance of  mine  was  saying  to  me  re- 
cently. "  For  instance,"  she  went  on,  "  I 
had  a  box  with  a  hole  in  one  end  of  it ;  I 
used  to  pretend  that  it  was  a  camera,  and 
pretend  to  take  pictures  with  it  !  I  cannot 
imagine  my  children  doing  that !  They  have 
real  cameras  and  take  real  pictures." 

The  camera  would  seem  to  be  typical  of 
the  toys  we  give  to  the  children  of  to-day; 
they  can  do  something  with  it,  — some- 
thing real. 

The  dearest  treasure  of  my  childhood  was 
a  tiny  gold  locket,  shaped,  and  even  engraved, 
like  a  watch.  Not  long  ago  I  was  showing 
it  to  a  little  girl  who  lives  in  New  York. 
"  I  used  to  pretend  it  was  a  watch,"  I  said  ; 
"  I  used  to  pretend  telling  the  time  by  it." 


INTRODUCTION  xxv 

She  gazed  at  it  with  interested  eyes.  "  It 
is  very  nice,"  she  observed  politely ;  "  but 
would  n*t  you  have  liked  to  have  a  real 
watch  ?  /  have  one ;  and  I  really  tell  the 
time  by  it." 

"But  you  cannot  pretend  with  it!"  I 
found  myself  saying. 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  can,"  the  little  girl  exclaimed 
in  surprise  ;  "  and  I  do !  I  hang  it  on  the 
cupola  of  my  dolls*  house  and  pretend  that 
it  is  the  clock  in  the  Metropolitan  Tower  !  " 

The  alarmists  warn  us  that  what  we  do 
for  the  children  in  the  direction  of  costly 
and  complicated  toys  may,  even  while  help- 
ing them  do  something  for  themselves,  mar 
their  priceless  simplicity.  Need  we  fear  this  ? 
Is  it  not  likely  that  the  "  real "  watches 
which  we  give  them  that  they  may  "  really  " 
tell  time,  will  be  used,  also,  for  more  than 
one  of  the  other  simple  purposes  of  child- 
hood ? 

The  English  woman  said  that  we  Amer- 
icans did  so  much,  so  very  much,  for  the 
children  of  our  nation.  There  have  been 
other  foreigners  who  asserted  that  we  did  too 


xxvi  INTRODUCTION 

much.  Indubitably,  we  do  a  great  deal.  But, 
since  we  do  it  all  that  the  children  may 
learn  to  do,  and,  through  doing,  to  be,  can 
we  ever  possibly  do  too  much?  "It  is  pos- 
sible to  converse  with  any  American  on  the 
American  child,"  the  English  woman  said. 
Certainly  every  American  has  something  to 
say  on  that  subject,  because  every  American 
is  trying  to  do  something  for  some  American 
child,  or  group  of  children,  to  do  much, 
very  much. 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 


THE   CHILD  AT   HOME 

In  one  of  the  letters  of  Alice,  Grand 
Duchess  of  Hesse,  to  her  mother,  Queen 
Victoria,  she  writes :  "  I  try  to  give  my 
children  in  their  home  what  I  had  in  my 
childhood's  home.  As  well  as  I  am  able,  I 
copy  what  you  did." 

There  is  something  essentially  British  in 
this  point  of  view.  The  English  mother, 
whatever  her  rank,  tries  to  give  her  children 
in  their  home  what  she  had  in  her  childhood's 
home  ;  as  well  as  she  is  able,  she  copies  what 
her  mother  did.  The  conditions  of  her  life 
may  be  entirely  different  from  those  of  her 
mother,  her  children  may  be  unlike  herself 
in  disposition  ;  yet  she  still  holds  to  tradition 
in  regard  to  their  upbringing ;  she  tries  to 
I 


>:%}    ;  TKE;.AMERICAN  CHILD 

make  their  home  a  reproduction  of  her 
mother's  home. 

The  American  mother,  whatever  her  sta- 
tion, does  the  exact  opposite  —  she  attempts 
to  bestow  upon  her  children  what  she  did 
not  possess  ;  and  she  makes  an  effort  to  imi- 
tate as  little  as  possible  what  her  mother  did. 
She  desires  her  children  to  have  that  which 
she  did  not  have,  and  for  which  she  longed; 
or  that  which  she  now  thinks  so  much  bet- 
ter a  possession  than  anything  she  did  have. 
Her  ambition  is  to  train  her  children,  not 
after  her  mother's  way,  but  in  accordance 
with  "the  most  approved  modern  method." 
This  method  is  apt,  on  analysis,  to  turn  out 
to  be  merely  the  reverse  side  of  her  mother's 
procedure. 

I  have  an  acquaintance,  the  mother  of  a 
plump,  jolly  little  tomboy  of  a  girl ;  which 
child  my  acquaintance  dresses  in  dainty  em- 
broideries and  laces,  delicately  colored  rib- 
bons, velvet  cloaks,  and  feathered  hats. 
These  garments  are  not  "becoming"  to  the 
little  girl,  and  they  are  a  distinct  hindrance 
to  her  hoydenish  activities.  They  are  not 

2 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

what  she  ought  to  have,  and,  moreover,  they 
are  not  what  she  wants. 

"  I  wish  I  had  a  middy  blouse,  and  some 
bloomers,  and  an  aviation  cap,  and  a  sweater, 
and  a  Peter  Thompson  coat !  "  I  heard  her 
say  recently    to   her  mother:    "the  other 

children  have  the«iJl! — — ^.^^^ 

(  51jQhildren  are  nexgr  satisfied!  *  *-her  mother 
exclaimed  to  me  later,  when  we  were  alone. 
*'  I  spend  so  much  time  and  money  seeing 
that  she  has  nice  clothes ;  and  you  hear  what 
she  thinks  of  them ! " 

"  But,  for  ordinary  wear,  for  play,  would  rCt 
the  things  she  wants  be  more  comfortable? " 
I  ventured.  "You  dress  her  so  beautifully ! " 
I  added. 

"  Well,"  said  my  acquaintance  in  a  grati- 
fied tone, "  I  am  glad  you  think  so.  /had  no 
very  pretty  clothes  when  I  was  a  child ;  and 
I  always  longed  for  them.  My  mother  did  n't 
believe  in  finery  for  children;  and  she  dressed 
us  very  plainly  indeed.  I  want  my  little  girl 
to  look  as  I  used  to  wish  /  might  look !  " 

"  But  she  does  n*t  care  how  she  looks — " 
I  began. 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

"  I  know,"  the  child's  mother  sighed.  "  I 
can  see  how  her  little  girls  will  be  dressed  ! " 

Can  we  not  all  see  just  that  ?  And  doubt- 
less the  little  girls  of  this  beruffled,  befurbe- 
lowed  tomboy — dressed  in  middy  blouses, 
and  bloomers,  and  aviation  caps,  and  sweat- 
ers, and  Peter  Thompson  coats,  or  their 
future  equivalents  —  will  wish  they  had  gar- 
ments of  a  totally  different  kind ;  and  she 
will  be  exclaiming,  "  Children  are  never 
satisfied  ! " 

If  this  principle  on  the  part  of  mothers 
in  America  in  providing  for  their  children 
were  confined  to  such  superficialities  as  their 
clothing,  no  appreciable  harm  —  or  good — 
would  come  of  it.  But  such  is  not  the  case; 
it  extends  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
child's  home  life. 

Only  the  other  day  I  happened  to  call 
upon  a  friend  of  mine  during  the  hour  set 
aside  for  her  little  girl's  piano  lesson.  The 
child  was  tearfully  and  rebelliously  playing 
a  "piece."  Her  teacher,  a  musician  of  un- 
usual ability,  guided  her  stumbling  fingers 
with  conscientious  patience  and  care.  A  child 
4 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

of  the  least  musical  talent  would  surely  have 
responded  in  some  measure  to  such  excel- 
lent instruction.  My  friend's  little  girl  did 
not.  When  the  lesson  was  finished,  she 
slipped  from  the  piano  stool  with  a  sigh  of 
intense  relief. 

She  started  to  run  out  of  doors ;  but  her 
mother  detained  her.  "  You  may  go  to  your 
room  for  an  hour,"  she  said,  gently  but 
gravely,  "  and  stay  there  all  alone.  That  will 
help  you  to  remember  to  try  harder  to- 
morrow to  have  a  good  music  lesson."  And 
the  child,  more  tearful,  more  rebellious  than 
before,  crept  away  to  her  room. 

"When  I  was  her  age  I  didn't  like  the 
work  involved  in  taking  music  lessons  any 
better  than  she  does,"  my  friend  said.  "  So 
my  mother  did  n't  insist  upon  my  taking 
them.  I  have  regretted  it  all  my  life.  I  love 
music ;  I  always  loved  it  —  I  loved  it  even 
when  I  hated  practising  and  music  lessons. 
I  wish  my  mother  had  made  me  keep  at  it, 
no  matter  how  much  I  objected !  Well,  I 
shall  do  it  with  my  daughter ;  she  '11  thank 
me  for  it  some  day." 

5 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

I  am  not  so  sure  that  her  daughter  will. 
Her  music-teacher  agrees  with  me.  "The 
child  has  no  talent  whatever,"  she  told  me. 
"  It  is  a  waste  of  time  for  her  to  take  piano 
lessons.  Her  mother  now — she  h^s  a  real 
gift  for  it !  I  often  wish  sJbe  would  take  the 
lessons ! " 

American  mothers  are  no  more  prone  to 
give  their  children  what  they  themselves  did 
not  have  than  are  American  fathers.  The 
man  who  is  most  eager  that  his  son  should 
have  a  college  education  is  not  the  man  who 
has  two  or  three  academic  degrees,  but  the 
man  who  never  went  to  college  at  all.  The 
father  whose  boys  are  allowed  to  be  irregular 
in  their  church  attendance  is  the  father  who, 
as  a  boy,  was  compelled  to  go  to  church, 
rain  or  shine,  twice  on  every  Sunday. 

(In  the  more  intimate  life  of  the  family  the 
same  principle  rules.  The  parents  try  to  give 
to  the  children  ideals  that  were  not  given  to 
them ;  they  attempt  to  inculcate  in  the  chil- 
dren habits  that  were  not  inculcated  in  them- 
selves. 
I  know  a  family  in  which  are  three  small 
V  6 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

girls,  between  whom  there  is  very  little  differ- 
ence in  age.  These  children  all  enjoy  com- 
ing to  take  tea  with  me.  For  convenience,  I 
should  naturally  invite  them  all  on  the  same 
afternoon. 

Both  their  father  and  mother,  however, 
have  requested  me  not  to  do  this.  "  Do  ask 
them  one  at  a  time  on  different  days,"  they 
said. 

"  Of  course  I  will,"  I  assented.  "  But  — 
why  ? "  I  could  not  forbear  questioning. 

"When  I  was  a  child,"  the  mother  of 
the  three  little  girls  explained,  "  I  was  never 
allowed  to  accept  an  invitation  unless  my 
younger  sister  was  invited,  too.  I  was  fond 
of  my  sister;  but  I  used  to  long  to  go  some- 
where sometime  by  myself!  My  husband 
had  the  same  experience  —  his  brother  al- 
ways had  to  be  invited  when  he  was,  or  he 
could  n't  go.  Our  children  shall  not  be  so 
circumscribed ! " 

There  is  not  much  danger  for  them,  cer- 
tainly, in  that  direction.  Yet  I  rather  think 
they  would  enjoy  doing  more  things  to- 
gether. One  day,  not  a  great  while  ago,  I 

7 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

chanced  to  meet  all  three  of  them  near  a  tea- 
room. I  asked  them  —  perforce  all  of  them 
—  to  go  in  with  me  and  partake  of  ice  cream. 
As  we  sat  around  the  table,  the  oldest  of  the 
three  glanced  at  the  other  two  with  a  friendly- 
smile.  "  It  is  nice  —  all  of  us  having  ice 
cream  with  you  at  the  same  time,"  she  re- 
marked, and  her  younger  sisters  enthusiast- 
ically agreed. 

To  be  sure,  they  are  nearer  the  same  age 
and  they  are  more  alike  in  their  tastes  than 
their  mother  and  her  sister,  or  their  father  and 
his  brother.  Perhaps  their  parents  needed  to 
take  their  pleasures  singly ;  they  seem  able 
quite  happily  to  take  theirs  in  company. 

I  have  another  friend,  who  was  brought 
up  in  a  household  in  which,  as  she  says,  "in- 
dividuality "  was  the  keynote.  In  her  own 
home  the  keynote  is  "  the  family."  She 
encourages  her  children  to  "  do  things  to- 
gether.'* Furthermore,  she  and  her  husband 
habitually  participate  in  their  children's  oc- 
cupations to  a  greater  degree  than  any  other 
parents  I  have  ever  seen. 

Their  friends  usually  entertain  these  chil- 
8 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

dren  "  as  a  family  " ;  but  not  long  ago,  hap- 
pening to  have  only  two  tickets  to  a  concert, 
I  asked  one,  and  just  one,  of  the  little  girls 
of  this  household  to  attend  it  with  me.  She 
accepted  eagerly.  During  an  intermission 
she  looked  up  at  me  and  said,  confidingly, 
"  It  is  nice  sometimes  to  do  things  not  *  as 
a  family,'  but  just  as  one's  self!'* 

Then,  for  the  first  time,  it  occurred  to  me 
that  she  was  the  "odd  one'*  of  her  family. 
All  its  pleasures,  all  its  interests,  were  not 
equally  hers.  She  needed  sometimes  to  do 
things  as  herself. 

In  matters  of  discipline,  too,  we  find  the 
same  theory  at  work.  Parents  who  were  se- 
verely punished  as  children  do  not  punish 
their  children  at  all ;  and  the  most  austere  of 
parents  are  those  who,  when  children,  were 
"  spoiled."  Almost  regardless  of  the  natures 
of  their  children,  parents  deal  with  them,  so 
far  as  discipline  is  concerned,  as  they  them- 
selves were  not  dealt  with. 

This  implies  no  lack  of  love,  no  lack  of 
respect,  for  the  older  generation.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  the  sign  and  symbol  of  a  love, 

9 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

a  respect,  so  great  as  to  permit  of  diver- 
gences of  opinion  and  procedure,  in  spite  of 
differences  of  age. 

"  I  am  not  going  to  bring  up  the  baby  in 
the  way  I  was  brought  up,  mamma,  dar- 
ling," I  once  heard  a  mother  of  a  month- 
old  baby  (her  first  child)  say  to  the  baby's 
grandmother. 

"Aren't  you,  dear ?"  replied  the  older 
lady,  with  a  smile.  "  Why  not  ?  " 

"  Oh,*'  returned  the  daughter,  "  I  want 
her  to  be  better  than  I  am.  I  think  if  you  'd 
brought  me  up  conversely  from  the  way  you 
did,  I  'd  have  been  a  much  more  worth-while 
person." 

She  spoke  very  solemnly,  but  her  mother 
only  laughed,  and  then  fondly  kissed  her 
daughter  and  her  granddaughter.  "That  is 
what  I  said  to  my  mother  when  you  were  a 
month  old  !  "  she  said  whimsically. 

Children  in  American  homes,  it  might  be 
supposed,  would  be  affected  by  such  diver- 
sity in  the  theories  of  their  parents  and  their 
grandparents  concerning  their  rearing.  They 
might  naturally  be  expected  to  "take  sides" 

10 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

with  the  one  or  the  other ;  or,  at  any  rate, 
to  be  puzzled  or  disturbed  by  the  principle 
of  "contrariwiseness  "governing  their  lives. 
From  their  earliest  years  they  are  aware  of 
it.  The  small  girl  very  soon  learns  that  the 
real  reason  why  she  finds  a  gold  bracelet  in 
her  Christmas  stocking  is  that  mother  "  al- 
ways wanted  one,  but  grandma  did  not  ap- 
prove of  jewelry  for  children/*  The  little 
boy  quickly  discovers  that  his  dog  sleeps  on 
the  foot  of  his  bed  mainly  because  "  father's 
dog  was  never  allowed  even  to  come  into  the 
house.  Grandpa  was  a  doctor,  and  thought 
dogs  were  not  clean." 

This  knowledge,  so  soon  acquired,  would 
seem  to  be  a  menace  to  family  unity;  but  it 
is  not  —  even  in  homes  in  which  the  three 
generations  are  living  together.  The  chil- 
dren know  what  their  grandparents  wished 
for  their  parents ;  they  know  what  their  pa- 
rents wish  for  them ;  but,  most  of  all  and 
best  of  all,  they  know  what  they  wish  for 
themselves.  It  is  not  what  their  parents  had, 
nor  what  their  parents  try  to  give  them ;  it 
is  "  what  other  children  have." 
II 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

Perhaps  all  children  are  conventional;  cer- 
tainly American  children  are.  They  wish  to 
have  what  the  other  children  of  their  ac- 
quaintance have,  they  wish  to  do  what  those 
other  children  do.  It  is  not  because  mother 
wanted  a  bracelet,  and  never  had  it,  that  the 
little  girl  would  have  a  bracelet ;  it  is  be- 
cause "  the  other  girls  have  bracelets."  Not 
on  account  of  the  rules  that  forbade  father's 
dog  the  house  is  the  small  boy  happy  in 
the  nightly  companionship  of  his  dog;  he 
takes  the  dog  to  bed  with  him  for  the  rea- 
son that  "  the  other  boys*  dogs  sleep  with 
them." 

Even  unto  honors,  if  they  must  carry 
them  alone,  children  in  America  would  rather 
not  be  born.  A  little  girl  who  lives  in  my 
neighborhood  came  home  from  school  in 
tears  one  day  not  long  ago.  Her  father  is  a 
celebrated  writer.  The  school-teacher,  hap- 
pening to  select  one  of  his  stories  to  read 
aloud  to  the  class,  mentioned  the  fact  that 
the  author  of  the  story  was  the  father  of  my 
small  friend. 

"  But  why  are  you  crying  about  it,  sweet- 

12 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

heart?*'  her  father  asked.  "  Do  you  think 
it  *s  such  a  bad  story  ?  '* 

"  Oh,  no,"  the  little  girl  answered  ;  "  it  is 
a  good  enough  story.  But  none  of  the  other 
children's  fathers  write  stories!  ^hy  doyoUy 
daddy  ?  It 's  so  peculiar  !  " 

It  may  be  that  all  children,  whatever  their 
nationalities,  are  like  this  little  girl.  We,  in 
America,  have  a  fuller  opportunity  to  be- 
come intimately  acquainted  with  the  minds  of 
children  than  have  the  people  of  any  other 
nation  of  the  earth.  For  more  completely 
than  any  other  people  do  American  fathers 
and  mothers  make  friends  and  companions 
of  their  children,  asking  from  them,  first, 
love  ;  then,  trust ;  and,  last  of  all,  the  defer- 
ence due  them  as  "  elders."  Any  child  may 
feel  as  did  my  small  neighbor  about  a  "  pe- 
culiar "  father ;  only  a  child  who  had  been 
his  comrade  as  well  as  his  child  would  so 
freely  have  voiced  her  feeling. 

We  all  remember  the  little  boy  in  Steven- 
son's poem,  "  My  Treasures,"  whose  dear- 
est treasure,  a  chisel,  was  dearest  because 
"  very  few  children  possess  such  a  thing." 

13 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

Had  he  been  an  American  child,  that  chisel 
would  not  have  been  a  "treasure"  at  all, 
unless  all  of  the  children  possessed  such  a 
thing. 

Not  only  do  the  children  of  our  Nation 
want  what  the  other  children  of  their  circle 
have  when  they  can  use  it;  they  want  it  even 
when  they  cannot  use  it.  I  have  a  little  girl 
friend  who,  owing  to  an  accident  in  her  in- 
fancy, is  slightly  lame.  Fortunately,  she  is 
not  obliged  to  depend  upon  crutches ;  but 
she  cannot  run  about,  and  she  walks  with  a 
pathetically  halting  step. 

One  autumn  this  child  came  to  her  mo- 
ther and  said :  "  Mamma,  I  *d  like  to  go  to 
dancing-school." 

"But,  my  dearest,  I  *m  afraid — I  don't 
believe — you  could  learn  to  dance — very 
well,"  her  mother  faltered. 

"  Oh,  mamma,  /  could  n*t  learn  to  dance 
at  all!  "  the  little  girl  exclaimed,  as  if  sur- 
prised that  her  mother  did  not  fully  realize 
this  fact. 

"Then,  dearest,  why  do  you  want  to  go  to 
dancing-school?"  her  mother  asked  gently. 

14 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

"  The  other  girls  in  my  class  at  school  are 
all  going,"  the  child  said. 

Her  mother  was  silent;  and  the  little  girl 
came  closer  and  lifted  pleading  eyes  to  her 
face.  ^^ Please  let  me  go  !  "  she  begged.  "The 
others  are  all  going,"  she  repeated. 

"  I  could  not  bear  to  refuse  her,"  the  mo- 
ther wrote  to  me  later.  "I  let  her  go.  I 
feared  that  it  would  only  make  her  feel  her 
lameness  the  more  keenly  and  be  a  source 
of  distress  to  her.  But  it  is  n*t ;  she  enjoys 
it.  She  cannot  even  try  to  learn  to  dance; 
but  she  takes  pleasure  in  being  present  and 
watching  the  others,  to  say  nothing  of  wear- 
ing a  'dancing-school  dress,*  as  they  do. 
This  morning  she  said  to  her  father:  'I 
can't  dance,  papa;  but  I  can  talk  about  it.  I 
learn  how  at  dancing-school.  Oh,  I  love 
dancing-school !  * " 

Her  particular  accomplishment  maybe  of 
minute  value  in  itself;  but  is  not  her  content 
in  it  a  priceless  good  ?  If  she  can  continue 
to  enjoy  learning  only  to  talk  about  the  plea- 
sures her  lameness  will  not  permit  her  other- 
wise to  share,  her  dancing-school    lessons 

15 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

will  have  taught  her  better  things  than  they 
taught  "  the  other  children,"  who  could 
dance. 

That  mother  was  her  little  girl's  confi- 
dential friend  as  well  as  her  mother.  The 
child,  quite  unreservedly,  told  her  what  she 
wanted  and  why  she  wanted  it.  It  was  no 
weak  indulgence  of  a  child's  whim,  but  a 
genuine  respect  for  another  person's  rights 
as  an  individual  —  even  though  that  individ- 
ual was  merely  a  little  child  —  that  led  that 
mother  to  allow  her  daughter  to  have  what 
she  wanted.  May  not  some  subtle  sense  of 
this  have  been  the  basis  of  the  child's  hap- 
piness in  the  fulfillment  of  her  desire  ?  She 
wanted  to  go  to  dancing-school  because  the 
other  children  were  going ;  but  may  she  not 
have  liked  going  because  she  felt  that  her 
mother  understood  and  sympathized  with 
her  desire  to  go? 

A  Frenchwoman  to  whom  I  once  said 
that  American  parents  treat  their  children  in 
many  ways  as  though  they  were  their  con- 
temporaries remarked,  "  But  does  that  not 
make  the  children  old  before  their  time  ? " 
i6 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

So  far  from  this,  it  seems,  on  the  contrary, 
to  keep  the  parents  young  after  their  time. 
It  has  been  truly  said  that  we  have  in  Amer- 
ica fewer  and  fewer  grandmothers  who  are 
"sweet  old  ladies,"  and  more  and  more  who 
are  "charming  elderly  women/*  We  hear 
less  and  less  about  the  "  older "  and  the 
"younger"  generations;  increasingly  we 
merge  two,  and  even  three,  generations  into 
one. 

Only  yesterday,  calling  upon  a  new  ac- 
quaintance, I  heard  the  four-year-old  boy  of 
the  house,  mentioning  his  father,  refer  to 
him  as  "Henry." 

His  grandmother  smiled,  and  his  mother 
said,  casually:  "When  you  speak  ^father, 
dear,  it  would  be  better  to  say,  *my  father,* 
so  people  will  be  sure  to  know  whom  you 
mean.  You  may  have  noticed  that  grandma 
always  says,  '  my  son,*  and  I  always  say 
*my  husband,*  when  we  speak  of  him.'* 

"  Does  he  call  his  father  by  his  Christian 
name?"  I  could  not  resist  questioning,  when 
the  little  boy  had  left  the  room. 

"  Sometimes,'*  replied  the  child's  mother. 

17 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

"  He  hears  so  many  persons  do  it,  he  can't 
see  why  he  should  n't.  And  there  really  is 
no  reason.  Soon  enough  he  will  find  out 
that  it  is  n't  customary  and  stop  doing  it." 

This  is  a  far  cry  from  the  days  when  chil- 
dren were  taught  to  address  their  parents  as 
"honored  sir"  and  "respected  madam." 
But,  it  seems  to  me,  the  parents  are  as  much 
honored  and  respected  now  as  then;  and  — 
more  important  still  —  both  they  and  the 
children  are,  if  not  dearer,  yet  nearer  one 
another. 

In  small  as  well  as  in  large  matters  they 
slip  into  their  parents*  places  —  neither 
encouraged  nor  discouraged,  but  simply 
accepted.  Companions  and  friends,  they 
behave  as  such,  and  are  treated  in  a  com- 
panionable and  friendly  manner. 

The  other  afternoon  I  dropped  in  at  tea- 
time  for  a  glimpse  of  an  old  friend. 

Her  little  girl  came  into  the  room  in  the 
wake  of  the  tea-tray.  "  Let  me  pour  the  tea," 
she  said,  eagerly. 

"  Very  well,"  her  mother  acquiesced.  "  Be 
careful  not  to  fill  the  cups  too  full,  so  that 
i8 


J»   •  •    >» 


THE  BOY  OF  THE  HOUSE 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

they  overflow  into  the  saucers  ;  and  do  not 
forget  that  the  tea  is  hoty'  she  supplemented. 

The  little  girl  had  never  poured  the  tea 
before,  but  her  mother  neither  watched  her 
nor  gave  her  any  further  directions.  The 
child  devoted  herself  to  her  pleasant  task. 
With  entire  ease  and  unconsciousness  she 
filled  the  cups,  and  made  the  usual  inquiries 
as  to  "one  lump,  or  two?"  and  "cream  or 
lemon?" 

"  Is  n*t  she  rather  young  to  pour  the  tea?  " 
I  suggested,  when  we  were  alone. 

"  I  don't  see  why,"  my  friend  said. 
"There  is  n*t  any  *  age  limit  *  about  pouring 
tea.  She  does  it  for  her  dolls  in  the  nursery  ; 
she  might  just  as  well  do  it  for  us  here.  Of 
course  it  is  hot ;  but  she  can  be  careful." 

There  are  few  things  in  regard  to  the 
doing  or  the  saying  or  the  thinking  of 
which  American  parents  apprehend  any  "  age 
limit."  Their  children  are  not  "  tender  ju- 
veniles." They  do  not  have  a  detached  life 
of  their  own  which  the  parents  "  share," 
nor  do  the  parents  have  a  detached  life  of 
their  own  which  the  children  "  share."  There 
19 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

is  the  common  life  of  the  home,  to  which  all, 
parents  and  children,  and  often  grandparents 
too,  contribute,  and  in  which  they  all 
"  share." 

This  is  the  secret  of  that  genuine  satis- 
faction that  so  many  of  us  grown-ups  in 
America  find  in  the  society  of  children, 
whether  they  are  members  of  our  own  fam- 
ilies or  are  the  children  of  our  friends  and 
neighbors. 

A  short  time  ago  I  had  occasion  to  invite 
to  Sunday  dinner  a  little  boy  friend  of  mine 
who  is  nine  years  old.  Lest  he  might  feel  his 
youth  in  a  household  which  no  longer  con- 
tains any  nine-year-olds,  I  invited  to  "meet 
him  "  two  other  boys,  playmates  of  his,  of 
about  the  same  age.  There  chanced  also  to 
be  present  a  friend,  a  professor  in  a  woman's 
college,  into  whose  daily  life  very  seldom 
strays  a  boy,  especially  one  nine  years  old. 

"  What  interesting  things  have  you  been 
doing  lately  ?  '*  she  observed  to  the  boy  be- 
side her  in  the  pause  which  followed  our 
settling  of  ourselves  at  the  table. 

"I  have  been  seeing  *The  Blue  Bird,*" 

20 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

he  at  once  answered.  "  lla.veyou  seen  it  ?  ** 
he  next  asked. 

No  sooner  had  she  replied  than  he  turned 
to  me.  "  I  suppose,  of  coursCy you  've  seen 
it,"  he  said. 

"Not  yet,"  I  told  him;  "but  I  have 
read  it  —  " 

"  Oh,  so  have  I ! "  exclaimed  one  of  the 
other  boys ;  "  and  I  Ve  seen  it,  too.  There 
is  one  act  in  the  play  that  is  n*t  in  the  book 
—  *The  Land  of  Happiness'  it  is.  My 
mother  says  she  does  n't  think  Mr.  Maeter- 
linck could  have  written  it ;  it  is  so  differ- 
ent from  the  rest  of  the  play." 

Those  present,  old  and  young,  who  had 
seen  "  The  Blue  Bird "  debated  this  possi- 
bility at  some  length. 

Then  the  boy  who  had  introduced  it  said 
to  me  :  "  I  wonder,  when  you  see  it,  whether 
you  7/  think  Mr.  Maeterlinck  wrote  '  The 
Land  of  Happiness '  act,  or  not." 

"I  haven't  seen  'The  Blue  Bird,'"  the 
third  boy  remarked,  "  but  I  've  seen  the 
Coronation  pictures."  Whereupon  we  fell 
to  discussing  moving-picture  shows. 

21 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

During  the  progress  of  that  dinner  we  con- 
sidered many  other  subjects,  lighting  upon 
them  casually;  touching  upon  them  lightly; 
and  —  most  significant  of  all  —  discoursing 
upon  them  as  familiars  and  equals.  None 
of  us  who  were  grown-up  "talked  down  "  to 
the  boys,  and  certainly  none  of  the  boys 
"talked  up"  to  us.  Each  one  of  them  at 
home  was  a  "dear  partner"  of  every  other 
member  of  the  family,  younger  and  older, 
larger  and  smaller.  Inevitably,  each  one 
when  away  from  home  became  quite  spon- 
taneously an  equal  shareholder  in  whatever 
was  to  be  possessed  at  all. 

A  day  or  two  after  the  Sunday  of  that  din- 
ner I  met  one  of  my  boy  guests  on  the 
street.  "  I  Ve  seen  '  The  Blue  Bird,'  "  I  said 
to  him;  "and  I'm  inclined  to  think  that, 
if  Mr.  Maeterlinck  did  write  the  act  *  The 
Land  of  Happiness,*  he  wrote  it  long  after 
he  had  written  the  rest  of  the  play.  I  think 
perhaps  that  is  why  it  is  so  different  from 
the  other  acts." 

"Why,  I  never  thought  of  that !  "the  boy 
cried,  with  absolute  unaffectedness.  He  ap- 

22 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

peared  to  consider  it  for  a  moment,  and  then 
he  said  :  "  I  Ul  tell  my  mother ;  she  '11  be  in- 
terested." 

Foreign  visitors  of  distinction  not  infre- 
quently have  accused  American  children  of 
being  "pert/'  or  "lacking  in  reverence,"  or 
"  sophisticated."  Those  of  us  who  are  bet- 
ter acquainted  with  the  children  of  our  own 
Nation  cannot  concur  in  any  of  these  accu- 
sations. Unhappily,  there  are  children  in 
America,  as  there  are  children  in  every  land, 
who  are  pert,  and  lacking  in  reverence,  and 
sophisticated ;  but  they  are  in  the  small  mi- 
nority, and  they  are  not  the  children  to  whom 
foreigners  refer  when  they  make  their  sweep- 
ing arraignments. 

The  most  gently  reared,  the  most  care- 
fully nurtured,  of  our  children  are  those  usu- 
ally seen  by  distinguished  foreign  visitors ; 
for  such  foreigners  are  apt  to  be  guests  of 
the  families  to  which  these  children  belong. 
The  spirit  of  frank  r<«w<2r^(^m^  displayed  by 
the  children  they  mistake  for  "  pertness  " ; 
the  trustful  freedom  of  their  attitude  toward 
their  elders  they  interpret  as  "  lack  of  rev- 

23 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

erence  " ;  and  their  eager  interest  in  subjects 
ostensibly  beyond  their  years  they  misread 
as  "sophistication." 

It  must  be  admitted  that  American  small 
boys  have  not  the  quaint  courtliness  of 
French  small  boys ;  that  American  little  girls 
are  without  the  pretty  shyness  of  English 
little  girls.  We  are  compelled  to  grant  that 
in  America  between  the  nursery  and  the 
drawing-room  there  is  no  great  gulf  fixed. 
This  condition  of  things  has  its  real  disad- 
vantages and  trials ;  but  has  it  not  also  its 
ideal  advantages  and  blessings  ?  Cooperative 
living  together,  in  spite  of  individual  differ- 
ences, is  one  of  these  advantages ;  tender 
intimacy  between  persons  of  varying  ages  is 
one  of  these  blessings. 

A  German  woman  on  her  first  visit  to 
America  said  to  me,  as  we  talked  about  chil- 
dren, that,  with  our  National  habit  of  treat- 
ing them  as  what  we  Americans  call  "  chums," 
she  wondered  how  parents  kept  any  author- 
ity over  them,  and  especially  maintained  any 
government  of  them,  3.nd  for  them,  without 
letting  it  lapse  into  a  government  ky  them. 

24 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

"  I  should  think  that  the  commandment 
'  Children,  obey  your  parents '  might  be  in 
danger  of  being  overlooked  or  thrust  aside," 
she  said,  "  in  a  country  in  which  children 
and  parents  are  'chums,*  as  Americans  say." 

That  ancient  commandment  would  seem 
to  be  too  toweringly  large  to  be  overlooked, 
too  firmly  embedded  in  the  world  to  be 
thrust  aside.  It  is  a  very  Rock  of  Gibraltar 
of  a  commandment. 

American  parents  do  not  relinquish  their 
authority  over  their  children.  As  for  gov- 
ernment—  like  other  wise  parents,  they  aim 
to  help  it  to  develop,  as  soon  as  it  properly 
can,  from  a  government  of  and  for  their 
children  into  a  government  by  them.  Self- 
government  is  the  lesson  of  lessons  they  most 
earnestly  desire  to  teach  their  children. 

Methods  of  teaching  it  differ.  Indeed,  as 
to  methods  of  teaching  their  children  any- 
thing, American  fathers  and  mothers  have 
no  fixed  standard,  no  homogeneous  ideal. 
More  likely  than  not  they  follow  in  this  im- 
portant matter  their  custom  in  matters  of 
lesser  import  —  of  employing  a  method  di- 

25 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

rcctly  opposed  to  the  method  of  their  own 
parents,  and  employing  it  simply  because  it 
is  directly  opposed.  This  is  but  too  apt  to 
be  their  interpretation  of  the  phrase  "  mod- 
ernity in  child  nurture/'  But  the  children 
learn  the  lesson.  They  learn  the  other  great 
and  fundamental  lessons  of  life,  too,  and 
learn  them  well,  from  these  American  fa- 
thers and  mothers  who  are  so  friendly 
and  companionable  and  sympathetic  with 
them. 

Why  should  they  not  ?  There  is  no  an- 
tagonism between  love  and  law.  Parents  are 
in  a  position  of  authority  over  their  children; 
no  risk  of  the  strength  of  that  position  is  in- 
volved in  a  friendship  between  parents  and 
children  anywhere.  It  is  not  remarkable  that 
American  parents  should  retain  their  author- 
ity over  their  children.  What  is  noteworthy 
is  that  their  children,  less  than  any  other  chil- 
dren of  the  civilized  world,  rebel  against  it 
or  chafe  under  it:  they  perceive  so  soon 
that  their  parents  are  governing  them  only 
because  they  are  not  wise  enough  to  govern 
themselves ;  they  realize  so  early  that  gov- 
26 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

ernment,  by  some  person  or  persons,  is  the 
estate  in  common  of  us  all! 

One  day  last  summer  at  the  seashore  I 
saw  a  tiny  boy,  starting  from  the  bath-house 
of  his  family,  laboriously  drag  a  rather  large 
piece  of  driftwood  along  the  beach.  Finally 
he  carefully  deposited  it  in  the  sand  at  a  con- 
siderable distance  from  the  bath-house. 

"Why  did  you  bring  that  big  piece  of 
wood  all  the  way  up  here?"  I  inquired  as  he 
passed  me. 

"  My  father  told  me  to,"  the  child  replied. 

"  Why  ?  "  I  found  myself  asking. 

"  Because  I  got  it  here ;  and  it  is  against 
the  law  of  this  town  to  take  anything  from 
this  beach,  except  shells.  Did  you  know  that  ? 
I  did  n*t ;  my  father  just  'splained  it  to  me." 

American  fathers  and  mothers  explain  so 
many  things  to  their  children !  And  Ameri- 
can children  explain  quite  as  great  a  number 
of  things  to  their  parents.  They  can ;  be- 
cause they  are  not  only  friends,  but  familiar 
friends.  We  have  all  read  Continental  auto- 
biographies, of  which  the  chapters  under  the 
general  title  "  Early  Years  "  contained  rec- 

27 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

ords  of  fears  based  upon  images  implanted 
in  the  mind  and  flourishing  there  —  images 
arising  from  some  childish  misapprehension 
or  misinterpretation  of  some  ordinary  and 
perfectly  explainable  circumstance.  "I  was 
afraid  to  pass  a  closed  closet  alone  after 
dark,"  one  of  these  says.  "I  had  heard  of 
'skeletons  in  closets';  I  knew  there  were 
none  in  our  closets  in  the  daytime,  but  I 
could  n*t  be  sure  that  they  did  not  come  to 
sleep  in  them  at  night;  and  I  was  too  shy  to 
inquire  of  my  parents.  What  terrors  I  suf- 
fered !  I  was  half-grown  before  I  under- 
stood what  a  'skeleton  in  a  closet'  was." 

An  American  child  would  have  discovered 
what  one  was  within  five  minutes  after  hear- 
ing it  first  mentioned,  provided  he  had  the 
slightest  interest  in  knowing.  No  American 
child  is  too  shy  to  inquire  of  his  parents  con- 
cerning anything  he  may  wish  to  know.  Shy- 
ness is  a  veil  children  wear  before  strangers ; 
in  the  company  of  their  intimates  they  lay  it 
aside — and  forget  it.  I  n  the  autobiographies 
of  Americans  we  shall  not  find  many  accounts 
of  childish  terrors  arising  from  any  reserve 
28 


THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

in  the  direction  of  asking  questions.  In 
American  homes  there  are  no  closets  whose 
doors  children  are  afraid  to  pass,  or  to  open, 
even  after  dark. 

"American  children  are  all  so  different ! " 
an  Englishman  complained  to  me  not  long 
ago ;  "  as  different  as  their  several  homes. 
One  can  make  no  statement  about  them  that 
is  conclusive." 

But  can  one  not  ?  To  be  sure,  they  do  vary, 
and  their  homes  vary  too  ;  but  in  one  great, 
significant,  fundamental  particular  they  are 
all  alike.  In  American  homes  the  parents 
not  only  love  their  children,  and  the  children 
their  parents;  their  "way  of  loving"  is  such 
that  one  may  say  of  them,  "  Their  souls  do 
bear  an  equal  yoke  of  love."  They  and 
their  parents  are  "chums." 


II 

THE   CHILD   AT   PLAY 

Not  long  ago  I  happened  to  receive  in  the 
same  mail  three  books  on  home  games,  writ- 
ten by  three  different  American  authors,  and 
issued  by  three  separate  publishing-houses. 
In  most  respects  the  books  were  dissimilar; 
but  in  one  interesting  particular  they  were  all 
alike :  the  games  in  them  were  so  designed 
that,  though  children  alone  could  play  them 
well,  children  and  grown-ups  together  could 
play  them  better.  No  one  of  the  several  au- 
thors suggested  that  he  had  any  such  theory 
in  mind  when  preparing  his  book ;  each  one 
simply  took  it  for  granted  that  his  "home 
games  "  would  be  played  by  the  entire  house- 
hold. Would  not  any  of  us  in  America,  writ- 
ing a  book  of  this  description,  proceed  from 
precisely  the  same  starting-point  ? 

We  all  recollect  the  extreme  amazement  in 
the  Castle  of  Dorincourt  occasioned  by  the 

30 


THE  CHILD  AT  PLAY 

sight  of  the  Earl  playing  a  "home  game" 
with  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy.  No  American 
grandfather  thus  engaged  would  cause  the 
least  ripple  of  surprise.  Little  Lord  Fauntle- 
roy, we  recall,  had  been  born  in  America,  and 
had  lived  the  whole  ten  years  of  his  life  with 
Americans.  He  had  acquired  the  habit,  so 
characteristic  of  the  children  of  our  Nation,  of 
including  his  elders  in  his  games.  Quite  na- 
turally, on  his  first  day  at  the  Castle,  he  said 
to  the  Earl, "  My  new  game — would  n*t  you 
like  to  play  it  with  me,  grandfather?"  The 
Earl,  we  remember,  was  astonished.  He  had 
never  been  in  America ! 

American  grown-ups  experience  no  aston- 
ishment when  children  invite  them  to  partici- 
pate in  their  play.  We  are  accustomed  to  such 
invitations.  To  our  ready  acceptance  of  them 
the  children  are  no  less  used.  "Will  you  play 
with  us? "  they  ask  with  engaging  confidence. 
"  Of  course  we  will !"  we  find  ourselves  cor- 
dially responding. 

I  chanced,  not  a  great  while  ago,  to  be  ill 
in  a  hospital  on  Christmas  Day.  Toward  the 
middle  of  the  morning,  during  the  "  hours 

31 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

for  visitors,"  I  heard  a  faint  knock  at  my 
door. 

Before  I  could  answer  it  the  door  opened, 
and  a  little  girl,  her  arms  full  of  toys,  softly 
entered. 

"  Did  you  say  '  Come  in  *  ?  "  she  inquired. 

Without  waiting  for  a  reply,  she  carefully 
deposited  her  toys  on  the  nurse*s  cot  near 
her.  Then,  closing  the  door,  she  came  and 
stood  beside  my  bed,  and  gazed  at  me  in 
friendly  silence. 

"Merry  Christmas!"  I  said. 

"Oh,  Merry  Christmas!"  she  returned, 
formally,  dropping  a  courtesy. 

She  was  a  sturdy,  rosy-cheeked  child,  and, 
though  wearing  a  fluffy  white  dress  and  slip- 
pers, she  looked  as  children  only  look  after 
a  walk  in  a  frosty  wind.  Clearly,  she  was  not 
a  patient. 

"Whose  little  girl  are  you?"  I  asked. 

"Papa's  and  mamma's,"  she  said  promptly. 

"  Where  are  they  ? "  I  next  interrogated. 

"In  papa's  room  —  down  the  hall,  around 
the  corner.  Papa  is  sick ;  only,  he  *s  better 
now,  and  will  be  all  well  soon.  And  mamma 
32 


THE  CHILD  At  play 

and  I  came  to  see  him,  with  what  Santa  Claus 
brought  us." 

"I  see,"  I  commented.  "And  these  are 
the  things  Santa  Claus  brought  you?"  I 
added,  indicating  the  toys  on  the  cot.  "You 
have  come,  now,  to  show  them  to  me  ?  " 

Her  face  fell  a  bit.  "  I  came  to  play  at  them 
with  you,"  she  said.  "Your  nurse  thought 
maybe  you'd  like  to,  for  a  while.  Are  you  too 
sick  to  play  ? "  she  continued,  anxiously ; 
"  or  too  tired,  or  too  busy  ?  " 

How  seldom  are  any  of  us  too  sick  to  play ; 
or  too  tired,  or  too  busy !  "I  am  not,"  I 
assured  my  small  caller.  "  I  should  enjoy 
playing.  What  shall  we  begin  with  ? "  I 
supplemented,  glancing  again  toward  the  toy- 
bestrewn  cot. 

"  Oh,  there  are  ever  so  many  things  !  "  the 
little  girl  said.  "  But,"  she  went  on  hesitat- 
ingly, "^^ar  things — perhaps  you'd  like  — 
might  I  look  at  them  first  ?  " 

Most  evident  among  these  things  of  mine 
was  a  small  tree,  bedizened,  after  the  German 
fashion,  with  gilded  nuts,  fantastically  shaped 
candies,  and    numerous   tiny   boxes,  gayly 

33 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

tied  with  tinsel  ribbons.  "What's  in  the 
boxes  — presents  or  jokes  ?  "  the  little  girl 
questioned.  "  Have  you  looked  ?  " 

"  I  had  n't  got  that  far,  when  you  came," 
I  told  her;  "but  I  rather  think — jokes." 

"/  V  want  to  know,''  she  suggested. 

When  I  bade  her  examine  them  for  me, 
she  said  :  "  Let 's  play  I  am  Santa  Glaus  and 
you  are  a  little  girl.  I  '11  hand  you  the  boxes, 
and  you  open  them." 

We  did  this,  with  much  mutual  enjoyment. 
The  boxes,  to  my  amusement  and  her  delight, 
contained  miniature  pewter  dogs  and  cats  and 
dolls  and  dishes.  "  Why,"  my  little  compan- 
ion exclaimed,  "  they  are  n't  jokes ;  they  are 
real  presents!  They  will  ht  just  right  to  have 
when  little  children  come  to  see  you !  " 

When  the  last  of  the  boxes  had  been 
opened  and  my  other  less  juvenile  "  things  " 
surveyed,  the  child  turned  to  her  own  treas- 
ures. "  There  are  the  two  puzzles,"  she  said, 
"  and  there  is  the  big  doll  that  can  say  '  Papa' 
and  'Mamma,'  and  there  is  the  paper  doll, 
with  lovely  patterns  and  pieces  to  make  more 
clothes  out  of  for  it,  and  there  is  a  game  papa 

34 


THE  CHILD  AT  PLAY 

just  loved.  Perhaps  you  'd  like  to  play  that 
best,  too,  'cause  you  are  sick,  too  ?  "  she  said 
tentatively. 

I  assented,  and  the  little  girl  arranged  the 
game  on  the  table  beside  my  bed,  and  ex- 
plained its  "  rules  "  to  me.  We  played  at  it 
most  happily  until  my  nurse,  coming  in,  told 
my  new-made  friend  that  she  must  "say 
*  Good-bye'  now." 

My  visitor  at  once  collected  her  toys  and 
prepared  to  go.  At  the  door  she  turned. 
"Good-bye,"  she  said,  again  dropping  her 
prim  courtesy.  "  I  have  had  a  very  pleasant 
time." 

"  So  have  I !  "  I  exclaimed. 

And  I  had  had."  She  was  so  entertaining," 
I  said  to  my  nurse,  "  and  her  game  was  so 
interesting! " 

"  It  is  not  an  uncommon  game,"  my  nurse 
remarked,  with  a  smile;  "and  she  is  just  an 
ordinary,  nice  child!" 

America  is  full  of  ordinary,  nice  children 
who  beguile  their  elders  into  playing  with 
them  games  that  are  not  uncommon.  How 
much  "  pleasant  time  "  is  thereby  spent ! 

35 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

*' Where  do  American  children  learn  to 
expect  grown  people  to  play  with  them  ? " 
an  Englishwoman  once  asked  me.  "  In  the 
kindergarten  ? " 

Undoubtedly  they  do.  In  no  country  ex- 
cept Germany  is  the  kindergarten  so  integral 
a  part  of  the  national  life  as  it  is  in  America. 
In  our  cities,  rich  and  poor  alike  send  their 
children  to  kindergartens.  Not  only  in  the 
public  and  the  private  schools,  but  also  in  the 
social  settlements,  and  even  in  the  Sunday- 
schools,  we  have  kindergarten  departments. 
In  the  rural  schools  the  teachers  train  the 
little  "beginners  "  in  accordance  with  kinder- 
garten principles.  Even  to  places  far  away 
from  any  schools  at  all  the  kindergarten  pene- 
trates. Only  yesterday  I  saw  a  book,  written 
by  a  kindergartner,  dedicated  to  "mothers 
on  the  rolling  prairie,  the  far-off  ranch o,  the 
rocky  island,  in  the  lonely  light-house,  the 
frontier  settlement,  the  high-perched  mining- 
camp,"  who,  distant  indeed  from  school  kin- 
dergartens and  their  equipment,  might  wish 
help  in  making  out  of  what  materials  they 
have  well-equipped  home  kindergartens. 

36 


THE  CHILD  AT  PLAY 

"  Come,  let  us  play  with  the  children,"  the 
apostles  of  Froebel  teach  us.  And,  "Come, 
let  us  ask  the  grown-ups  to  play  with  us," 
they  would  seem  unconsciously  to  instruct 
the  children. 

One  autumn  a  friend  of  mine,  the  mother 
of  a  three-year-old  boy  and  of  a  daughter  aged 
sixteen,  said  to  me  :  "  This  is  my  daughter's 
first  term  in  the  high  school ;  she  will  need 
my  help.  My  boy  is  just  at  the  age  when  it 
takes  all  the  spare  time  I  have  to  keep  him 
out  of  mischief;  how  shall  I  manage?" 

"  Send  the  boy  to  kindergarten,"  I  advised. 
"  He  is  ready  to  go  ;  and  it  will  be  good  for 
him.  He  will  bring  some  of  the  *  occupations  * 
home  with  him  ;  and  they  will  keep  him  out 
of  mischief  for  you." 

She  sent  the  boy  to  a  little  kindergarten  in 
the  neighborhood. 

About  two  months  later,  I  said  to  her,  "  I 
suppose  the  kindergarten  has  solved  the 
problem  of  more  spare  time  for  your  daugh- 
ter's new  demands  upon  you  ?  " 

"  Well  — in  a  way,"  she  replied,  dubiously. 
"It  gives  me  the  morning  free  ;  but  —  " 
37 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

"  Does  n't  the  boy  bring  home  any  '  occu- 
pations *  ?  '*  I  interposed. 

My  friend  laughed.  ''  Yes,"  she  said ; "  he 
certainly  does !  But  he  does  n't  want  to  '  oc- 
cupy '  himself  alone  with  them  ;  he  wants  all 
of  us  to  do  it  with  him !  We  have  become 
quite  expert  at  *  weaving/  and '  folding/ and 
*  sewing ' !  But,  on  the  other  hand,'*  she  went 
on, "  he  is  n*t  so  much  trouble  as  he  was. 
He  wants  us  to  play  with  him  more,  but  he 
plays  more  intelligently.  We  take  real  pleas- 
ure in  joining  in  his  games,  and  —  actually 
—  in  letting  him  share  ours." 

This  little  boy,  now  five  years  old,  came  to 
see  me  the  other  day. 

"  What  would  you  like  to  do  ?  "  I  asked, 
when  we  had  partaken  of  tea.  "  Shall  we  put 
the  jig-saw  puzzle  together  ;  or  should  you 
prefer  to  have  me  tell  you  a  story  ?  " 

"  Tell  me  a  story,"  he  said  at  once  ;  "  and 
then  I  '11  tell  you  one.  And  then  you  tell  an- 
other—  and  then  7  7/ tell  another  —  "  He 
broke  off,  to  draw  a  long  breath.  "  It 's  a 
game/'  he  continued,  after  a  moment.  "  We 
play  it  in  kindergarten." 

38 


THE   CHILD   AT   PLAY 

"  Do  you  enjoy  telling  stories  more  than 
hearing  them  told  ? "  I  inquired,  when  we 
had  played  this  game  to  the  extent  of  three 
stories  on  either  side. 

"  No,"  my  little  boy  friend  replied.  "  I 
like  hearing  stories  told  more  than  anything. 
But  that  is  n't  a  game ;  that's  just  being-told- 
stories.  The  game  is  taking-turns-telling- 
stories."  He  enunciated  each  phrase  as 
though  it  were  a  single  word. 

His  mother  had  spoken  truly  when  she 
said  that  her  little  boy  had  learned  to  play 
intelligently.  He  had  learned,  also,  to  include 
his  elders  in  his  games  on  equal  terms.  Small 
wonder  that  they  took  real  pleasure  in  play- 
ing with  him. 

The  children  cordially  welcome  us  to  their 
games.  They  ask  us  to  be  children  with 
them.  As  heartily,  they  would  have  us  be- 
speak their  company  in  our  games;  they  are 
willing  to  try  to  be  grown-up  with  us. 

I  was  visiting  a  family  recently,  in  which 
there  is  but  one  small  child,  a  boy  of  eight. 
One  evening  we  were  acting  charades.  Di- 
vided into  camps,  we  chose  words  in  turn, 
39 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

and  in  turn  were  chosen  to  superintend  the 
"  acting-out"  of  the  particular  word.  It  hap- 
pened that  the  word  "Psychical-research," 
and  the  turn  of  the  eight-year-old  boy  to  be 
stage-manager  coincided.  Every  one  in  his 
camp  laughed,  but  no  one  so  much  as  re- 
motely suggested  that  the  word  or  the  stage- 
manager  be  changed. 

"What  does  it  mean,  'Psychical-research  *  ?" 
the  boy  made  question. 

We  laughed  still  more,  but  we  genuinely 
tried  to  make  the  term  comprehensible  to  the 
child's  mind. 

This  led  to  such  prolonged  and  lively  ar- 
gument that  the  little  stage-manager  finally 
observed:  "I  don't  see  how  it  can  mean  all 
that  all  of  you  say.  Can*t  we  let  the  whole- 
word  act  of  it  go,  and  act  out  the  rest?  We 
can,  you  know — ^Sigh,'  'kick,'  'all';  and 
're'  (like  in  music,  you  know),  and 'search!'" 

"Oh,  no,"  we  demurred;  "we  must  do  it 
properly,  or  not  at  all!" 

"  Well,  then,"  said  the  boy,  in  a  quaintly 
resigned  tone  of  voice,  "  talk  to  me  about  it, 
until  I  know  what  it  is ! " 

40 


THE   CHILD    AT    PLAY 

In  spite  of  hints  from  the  other  camp  not 
to  overlap  the  time  allotted  us,  in  the  face  of 
messages  from  them  to  hurry,  regardless  of 
their  protests  against  our  dilatoriness,  we  did 
talk  to  that  little  eight-year-old  boy  about 
"  Psychical-research  "until  he  understood  its 
meaning  sufficiently  to  plan  his  final  act.  "If 
he  is  playing  with  us,  then  he  is  playing 
with  us,"  his  father  somewhat  cryptically  re- 
marked ;  "  and  he  must  know  the  details  of 
the  game." 

This  playing  with  grown-ups  does  not 
curtail  the  play  in  which  children  engage 
with  their  contemporaries.  There  are  games 
that  are  distinctly  "children's  games."  We 
all  know  of  what  stuff  they  are  made,  for 
most  of  us  have  played  them  in  our  time  — 
running-games,  jumping-games,  shouting- 
games.  By  stepping  to  our  windows  nearly 
any  afternoon,  we  may  see  some  of  them 
in  process.  But  we  shall  not  be  invited  to  par- 
ticipate. At  best,  the  children  will  pause  for  a 
moment  to  ask,  "  Did  you  play  it  this  way  ? " 

Very  likely  we  did  not.  Each  generation 
plays  the  old  games ;  every  generation  plays 
41 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

them  in  a  slightly  new  way.  The  present 
generation  would  seem  to  play  them  with  a 
certain  self-consciousness ;  without  that  ^z^tf«- 
don  of  an  earlier  time. 

A  short  while  ago  I  happened  to  call  upon 
a  friend  of  mine  on  an  afternoon  when,  her 
nursemaid  being  "  out/'  she  was  alone  with 
her  children — a  boy  of  seven  and  a  girl  of 
five.  I  found  them  together  in  the  nursery  ; 
my  friend  was  sewing,  and  the  children  were 
playing  checkers.  Apparently,  they  were  en- 
tirely engrossed  in  their  game.  Immediately 
after  greeting  me  they  returned  to  it,  and 
continued  it  with  seeming  obliviousness  of 
the  presence  of  any  one  excepting  themselves. 
But  when  their  mother,  in  the  course  of  a 
few  moments,  rose,  and  said  to  me  :  "  Let  *s 
go  down  to  the  library  and  have  tea,"  both 
the  children  instantly  stopped  playing  — 
though  one  of  them  was  in  the  very  thick  of 
"taking  a  king"  —  and  cried,  "Oh,  don't 
go ;  stay  with  us!" 

"  My  dears,"  my  friend  said,  "you  don't 
need  us  ;  you  have  your  game.  Are  n't  you 
happy  with  it  ?  " 

4^. 


THE   CHILD   AT   PLAY 

"  Why ,  yes,"  the  little  girl  admitted ;  "  but 
we  want  you  to  see  us  being  happy! " 

Only  to-day,  as  I  came  up  my  street,  a 
crowd  of  small  children  burst  upon  me  from 
behind  a  hedge ;  and,  shouting  and  gestic- 
ulating, surrounded  me.  Their  faces  were 
streaked  with  red,  and  blue,  and  yellow  lines, 
applied  with  crayons ;  feathers  of  various 
domestic  kinds  ornamented  their  hats  and 
caps,  and  they  waved  in  the  air  broken  laths, 
presumably  gifts  from  a  builder  at  work  in 
the  vicinity. 

"  We  are  Indians!  "  they  shrieked  ;  "  wild 
Indians !  See  our  war-paint,  and  feathers, 
and  tomahawks!  We  hunt  the  pale  face!" 

While  I  sought  about  for  an  appropriate 
answer  to  make,  my  little  neighbors  suddenly 
became  calm. 

"  Don't  we  children  have  fun  ? "  one  of 
them  questioned  me.  "  You  like  to  see  us 
having  fun,  don't  you?" 

I  agreed,  and  again  their  war-whoops 
began.  They  followed  me  to  my  door  in  a 
body.  Inside  I  still  heard  them  playing,  but 
with  lessened  din.  Several  times  during  the 

43 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

afternoon,  hearing  their  noise  increase,  I 
looked  out;  each  time  I  saw  that  the  arrival 
of  another  grown-up  pale  face  was  the  occa- 
sion of  the  climactic  momentin  thegame.  In 
order  to  be  wild  Indians  with  perfect  happi- 
ness the  small  players  demanded  an  appre- 
ciative audience  to  see  them  being  happy. 

Some  of  us  in  America  are  prone  to  depre- 
cate in  the  children  of  our  Nation  this  pleased 
consciousness  of  their  own  enjoyment,  this 
desire  for  our  presence  as  sympathetic  on- 
lookers at  those  of  their  games  in  which  we 
cannot  join.  We  must  not  allow  ourselves 
to  forget  that  it  is  a  state  of  mind  fostered 
largely  by  our  National  habit  of  treating  chil- 
dren as  familiars  and  equals.  Our  satisfaction 
in  their  pleasures  we  mention  in  their  hear- 
ing. If  they  are  aware  that  we  like  to  see  them 
"  being  happy,"  it  is  because  we  have  told 
them,  and  told  them  repeatedly.  We  do  not^ 
as  in  a  former  time,  "spell  some  of  our 
words"  in  their  company,  in  order  that  they 
may  not  know  all  we  say.  On  the  contrary^ 
we  pronounce  all  our  words  with  especial 
clearness,  and  even  define  such  as  are  ob- 

44 


THE  CHILD  AT  PLAY 

scure,  that  the  children  not  only  may,  but 
must,  fully  understand  us  when  we  speak 
"  before  them."  Unquestionably  this  takes 
from  the  play  of  the  children  self-forgetful- 
ness  of  one  kind,  but  sometimes  it  gives  to 
them  self-forgetfulness  of  another,  a  rarer 
kind. 

I  know  a  family  of  children,  lovers  of 
games  which  involve  running  races.  Several 
years  ago  one  of  the  boys  of  this  family  died. 
Since  his  death  the  other  children  run  no 
more  races. 

"  We  like  running  races  just  as  much," 
one  of  the  girls  explained  to  me  one  evening, 
as  we  sat  by  the  fire  and  talked  about  her 
dead  brother ;  "  but,  you  know,  he  always 
liked  them  best,  because  he  generally  won. 
He  loved  to  have  mother  see  him  winning. 
He  was  always  getting  her  to  come  and  watch 
him  do  it.  And  mother  liked  it,  and  used  to 
tell  other  people  about  it.  We  don't  run 
races  now,  because  it  might  remind  mother 
too  much." 

No  matter  how  joyously  American  child- 
ren may  play  with  their  elders,  or  with  their 

45 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

contemporaries,  whatever  enhancement  their 
satisfaction  in  play  with  one  another  may  gain 
from  the  presence  of  grown-up  spectators, 
they  are  not  likely  to  become  so  dependent 
upon  the  one,  nor  so  self-conscious  by  reason 
of  the  other,  that  they  will  relinquish — or, 
worse  still,  never  know — the  dear  delights 
of  "playing  alone."  Games  played  in  com- 
pany may  be  the  finest  prose  —  they  are  yet 
prose;  games  played  alone  are  pure  poetry. 
The  children  of  our  Nation  are  not  without 
that  imagination  which,  on  one  day  or  an- 
other, impels  a  child  to  wander,  "  lonely  as  a 
cloud,"  along  the  path  of  dreamful,  solitary 
play. 

How  often  a  child  who,  to  our  eyes,  ap- 
pears to  be  doing  nothing  whatever,  is  "  play- 
ing alone  "  a  delectable  game !  Probably,  only 
once  in  a  hundred  times,  and  then,  by  the 
merest  accident,  do  we  discover  what  that 
game  is. 

Among  my  child  friends  there  is  a  little 

boy  who  takes  great  pleasure  in  seeing  dramas 

acted.    One  spring  day  I  took  him  to  an 

open-air  presentation  of  "  As  You  Like  It." 

46 


THE  CHILD  AT  PLAY 

The  comedy  was  charmingly  given  in  a  clear- 
ing in  a  beautiful  private  park.  Orlando  had 
"real"  trees  and  hawthorns  and  brambles 
upon  which  to  hang  his  verses;  and  he  made 
lavish  use  of  them. 

The  fancy  of  my  small  friend  was  quite 
captivated  by  what  he  called  "  playing  hide- 
and-go-seek  with  poems."  "What  fun  he 
has,  watching  her  find  them  and  not  letting 
her  know  he  hid  them!"  he  exclaimed. 

Later  in  the  season  I  went  to  spend  a  few 
days  at  the  country  home  of  his  parents. 
Early  one  morning,  from  my  window,  I  es- 
pied the  little  boy,  stealthily  moving  about 
under  the  trees  in  the  adjacent  apple  orchard. 

At  breakfast  he  remarked  to  me,  casually, 
"It's  nice  in  the  orchard — all  apple  blos- 
soms." 

"  Will  you  go  out  there  with  me  ? "  I  asked. 

"  P'aps  not  to-day,"  he  made  reply. 
"  But,"  he  hazarded,  "you  could  go  by  your- 
self. It's  nice,"  he  repeated;  "all apple  blos- 
soms. Get  close  to  the  trees,  and  smell 
them." 

It  was  a  pleasant  plan  for  a  May  morning. 
47 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

I  lost  no  time  in  putting  it  into  practice. 
Involuntarily  I  sought  that  corner  of  the  or- 
chard in  which  I  had  seen  my  small  friend. 
Mindful  of  his  counsel,  I  got  close  to  the 
apple  blossoms  and  smelled  them.  As  I  did 
so  I  noticed  a  crumpled  sheet  of  paper  in  a 
crotch  of  one  of  the  trees.  I  no  sooner  saw 
it  than  I  seized  it,  and,  smoothing  it  out, 
read,  written  in  a  primary-school  hand :  — 

•'  The  rose  is  red. 
The  violet  blue. 
Sugar  is  sweet. 
And  so  are  you.*' 

Need  I  say  that  I  had  scarcely  read  this 
before  I  entered  upon  an  exhaustive  search 
among  the  other  trees  ?  My  amused  efforts 
were  well  rewarded.  Between  two  flower- 
laden  branches  I  descried  another  "  poem," 
in  identical  handwriting  :  — 

**  A  birdie  with  a  yellow  bill 
Hopped  upon  the  window-sill, 
Cocked  his  shining  eye  and  said 
•Ain't  you  'shamed,  you  sleepy-head  !*  " 

In  a  tiny  hollow  I  found  still  another,  by 
the  same  hand  : — 

48 


THE  CHILD  AT  PLAY 

**  *T  was  brillig,  and  the  slithy  tovcs 
Did  gyre  and  gimble  in  the  wabe  ; 
All  mimsy  were  the  borogoves. 
And  the  mome  raths  outgrabc.** 

As  I  went  back  to  the  house,  bearing  my 
findings,  I  met  my  little  boy  friend.  He 
tried  not  to  see  what  I  carried. 

"  I  gathered  these  from  the  apple  trees," 
I  said,  holding  out  the  verses.  "  They  are 
poems." 

He  made  no  motion  to  take  the  "  poems." 
His  eyes  danced.  But  neither  then  did  he 
say  nor  since  has  he  said  that  the  verses 
were  his ;  that  he  was  the  Orlando  who  had 
caused  them  to  grow  upon  the  trees. 

Another  child  of  my  acquaintance,  a  little 
girl,  I  discovered  in  an  even  sweeter  game 
for  "playing  alone."  She  chanced  to  call 
upon  me  one  afternoon  just  as  I  was  taking 
from  its  wrappings  an  edition  de  luxe  of 
"  Pippa  Passes."  Her  joy  in  the  exquisite 
illustrations  with  which  the  book  was  embel- 
lished even  exceeded  mine. 

"  Is  the  story  in  the  book  as  lovely  as  the 
pictures?"  she  queried. 

49 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

"  Yes,"  I  assured  her. 

Then,  at  her  urgent  request,  I  told  her 
the  tale  of  the  "  little  black-eyed  pretty  sing- 
ing Felippa";  of  her  "single  day,'*  and  of 
her  singing  that  "  righted  all  again*'  on  that 
holiday  in  Asolo. 

The  child  was  silent  for  a  moment  after  I 
had  finished  the  story.  "Do  you  like  it?"  I 
inquired. 

"Um — yes,"  she  mused.  "  Let  me  look 
at  the  pictures  some  more,"  she  asked,  with 
sudden  eagerness. 

I  handed  her  the  book,  and  she  pored 
over  it  for  a  long  time.  "The  houses  then 
were  not  like  the  houses  now — were  they?" 
she  said;  "and  the  people  dressed  in  funny 
clothes." 

The  next  Saturday,  at  an  early  hour,  I 
heard  beneath  my  window  a  childish  voice 
singing  a  kindergarten  song.  I  peeped  out. 
There  stood  my  little  friend.  I  was  careful 
to  make  no  sound  and  to  keep  well  in  the 
shadow.  The  small  girl  finished  her  song, 
and  softly  ran  away. 

"Your  little  girl  serenaded  me  the  other 
50 


THE  CHILD  AT  PLAY 

morning,"  I  said  to  her  mother  when  I  saw 
her  a  few  days  afterward.  The  child  had 
shown  so  slight  an  interest  in  anything  in  my 
book  except  the  pictures  that  I  did  not  yet 
connect  her  singing  with  it. 

"  You,  too !"  exclaimed  the  little  girl's 
mother.  "  She  evidently  serenaded  the  en- 
tire neighborhood!  All  day  Saturday,  her 
only  holiday,  she  went  around,  singing  under 
various  windows !  I  wonder  what  put  the 
idea  into  her  head." 

"Did  you  ask  her?"  I  questioned,  with 
much  curiosity. 

"Yes,"  answered  the  child's  mother;  "but 
she  only  smiled,  and  looked  embarrassed,  so 
I  said  nothing  further.  She  seemed  to  want 
to  keep  her  secret,  the  dear  baby!  So  I 
thought  rd  let  her!" 

And  I  —  I,  too,  kept  it.    "Yes,  do  let 
her,"  was  all  I  said. 

American  children,  when  "  playing  alone," 
impersonate  the  heroes  and  heroines  of  the 
dramas  they  see,  or  the  stories  they  are  told, 
or  the  books  they  read  (how  much  more 
often  they  must  do  it  than  we  suspect  our 

SI 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

memories  of  our  own  childish  days  will  teach 
us),  but  when  they  play  together,  even  when 
they  "play  at  books  that  they  have  read," 
they  seldom  "pretend."  A  group  of  small 
boys  who  have  just  read  "  Robin  Hood"  do 
not  say  :  "Wouldn't  it  be  fun  to  play  that 
we  are  Robin  Hood  and  his  Merry  Men, 
and  that  our  grove  is  Sherwood  Forest?" 
They  are  more  apt  to  say  :  "  It  would  be 
good  sport  for  us — shooting  with  bows  and 
arrows.  We  might  get  some,  and  fix  up  a  tar- 
get somewhere  and  practise."  The  circle  of 
little  girls  who  have  read  "  Mary's  Meadow" 
do  not  propose  that  they  play  at  being  Mary. 
They  decide  instead  upon  doing,  in  their  own 
proper  persons,  what  Mary  did  in  hers.  They 
can  play  together,  the  children  of  our  Nation, 
but  they  seem  unable  to  "pretend"  together. 
They  are  perhaps  too  self-conscious. 

It  is  a  significant  circumstance  that  yearly 
there  are  published  in  America  a  large  num- 
ber of  books  for  children  telling  them  "  how 
to  make  "  various  things.  A  great  part  of 
their  play  consists  in  making  something  — 
from  a  sunken  garden  to  an  air-ship. 


THE  CHILD  AT  PLAY 

I  recently  had  a  letter  from  a  boy  in 
which  he  said  :  "  The  boys  here  are  getting 
wireless  sets.  We  have  to  buy  part  of  the 
things ;  but  we  make  as  many  of  them  as 
we  can." 

And  how  assiduously  they  attempt  to 
make  as  many  as  they  can  of  the  other 
things  we  grown-ups  make!  They  imitate 
our  play  ;  and,  in  a  spirit  of  play,  they  con- 
trive to  copy  to  its  last  and  least  detail  our 
work.  If  we  play  golf  or  tennis,  they  also 
play  these  games.  Are  we  painters  of  pic- 
tures or  writers  of  books,  they  too  aspire  to 
paint  or  to  write ! 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  we  encourage 
the  children  in  this  "endless  imitation."  We 
not  only  have  diminutive  golf  sticks  and 
tennis  rackets  manufactured  for  their  use  as 
soon  as  they  would  play  our  games ;  when 
they  show  signs  of  toying  with  our  work, 
we  promptly  set  about  providing  them  with 
the  proper  means  to  that  end. 

One  of  our  best-known  magazines  for 
children  devotes  every  month  a  consider- 
able number  of  its   pages  to  stories   and 

53 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

poems  and  drawings  contributed  by  chil- 
dren. Furthermore,  it  offers  even  such  re- 
wards as  we  grown-up  writers  and  painters 
are  offered  for  "  available  "  products.  More- 
over, the  young  contributors  are  instructed 
in  the  intricacies  of  literary  and  artistic  eti- 
quette. They  are  taught  how  to  prepare 
manuscripts  and  drawings  for  the  editorial 
eye.  The  "  rules  "  given  these  children  are 
identical  with  the  regulations  governing 
well-conducted  grown-up  writers  and  artists 
—  excepting  that  the  children  are  com- 
manded to  "  state  age,"  and  "  have  the  con- 
tribution submitted  indorsed  as  wholly  ori- 
ginal ! " 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  hundreds  of 
children  in  America  send  in  contributions, 
month  after  month,  year  after  year,  to  this 
magazine.  Even  more  significant  is  it  that 
they  prepare  these  contributions  with  all  the 
conscientious  care  of  grown-up  writers  or 
painters  to  whom  writing  or  painting  is  the 
chiefest  reality  of  life.  So  whole-heartedly 
do  the  children  play  at  being  what  their 
elders  are  ! 

54 


THE  DEAR  DELIGHTS  OF  PLAYING  ALONE 


THE  CHILD  AT  PLAY 

An  Italian  woman  once  asked  me,  "The 
American  children  —  what  do  they  employ 
as  toys  ? " 

I  could  only  reply,  "Almost  anything; 
almost  everything !  " 

When  we  are  furthest  from  seeing  the 
toy  possibilities  of  a  thing,  they  see  it.  I 
have  among  my  treasures  a  libation  cup 
and  a  ushabti  figurine  —  votive  offerings 
from  the  Temple  of  Osiris,  at  Abydos. 

A  short  time  ago  a  little  boy  friend  of 
mine  lighted  upon  them  in  their  safe  re- 
treat. "  What  are  these?"  he  inquired. 

"They  came  from  Egypt  — "  I  began. 

"  Oh,  really  and  truly  ?  "  he  cried.  "  Did 
they  come  from  the  Egypt  in  the  poem  — 

'« 'Where  among  the  desert  sands 
Some  deserted  city  stands. 
There  I  '11  come  when  I  'm  a  man 
With  a  camel  caravan  ; 
And  in  a  corner  find  the  toys 
Of  the  old  Egyptian  boys  '  ?  " 

He  spent  a  happy  hour  playing  with  the 
libation  cup  and  the  ushabti  —  trophies  of 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  explorations  of 

55 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

our  era.  I  did  not  tell  him  what  they  were. 
He  knew  concerning  them  all  he  needed  to 
know — that  they  could  be  "employed  as 
toys."  Perhaps  the  very  tiniest  of  the  "  old 
Egyptian  boys  "  had  known  only  this,  too. 

"  Little  girls  do  not  play  with  dolls  in 
these  days !  **  is  a  remark  that  has  been 
made  with  great  frequency  of  late  years. 
Those  of  us  who  have  many  friends  among 
little  girls  often  wonder  what  is  at  the  basis 
of  this  rumor.  There  have  always  been  girls 
who  did  not  care  for  dolls.  In  the  old-fash- 
ioned story  for  girls  there  was  invariably  one 
such.  In  "Little  Women/*  as  we  all  recall, 
it  was  Jo.  No  doubt  the  persons  who  say 
that  little  girls  no  longer  play  with  dolls 
count  among  their  childish  acquaintances  a 
disproportionate  number  of  Jos.  Playing 
with  dolls  would  seem  to  be  too  funda- 
mentally little-girlish  ever  to  fall  into  de- 
suetude. 

"  Girls,  as  well  as  boys,  play  with  dogs  in 

these  days!"   is  another  plaintive  cry  we 

often  hear.   But  were  there  ever  days  when 

this  was  not  the  case  ?  From  that  far-ofF 

56 


THE  CHILD  AT  PLAY 

day  when  Iseult  "  had  always  a  little  brachet 
with  her  that  Tristram  gave  her  the  first 
time  that  ever  she  came  into  Cornwell," 
to  the  time  when  Dora  cuddled  Jip,  even 
down  to  our  own  day,  when  the  heroine  of 
*'  Queed  "  walks  forth  with  her  Behemoth, 
girls  both  in  fact  and  in  fiction  have  played 
with  dogs ;  played  with  them  no  less  than 
boys.  This  proclivity  on  the  part  of  the  lit- 
tle girls  of  our  Nation  is  not  distinctively 
American,  nor  especially  childish,  nor  par- 
ticularly girl-like;  it  is  merely  human. 

In  few  activities  do  the  children  of  our 
Nation  reveal  what  we  call  the  "  American 
•sense  of  humor  "  so  clearly  as  in  their  play. 
Slight  ills,  and  even  serious  misfortunes,  they 
instinctively  endeavor  to  lift  and  carry  with 
a  laugh.  It  would  be  difficult  to  surpass  the 
gay  heroism  to  which  they  sometimes  at- 
tain. 

Most  of  us  remember  the  little  hunch- 
backed boy  in  "  Little  Men  "  who,  when  the 
children  played  "  menagerie,"  chose  the  part 
of  the  dromedary.  "  Because,"  he  explained, 
^*  I  have  a  hump  on  my  back  1" 

57 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

Among  my  acquaintances  there  Is  a  little 
girl  who  is  blind.  One  day  I  invited  her  to 
go  picnicking  with  a  party  of  normal  chil- 
dren, one  of  whom  was  her  elder  sister.  She 
was  accustomed  to  the  company  of  children 
who  could  see,  and  she  showed  a  ready  dis- 
position to  join  in  the  games  of  the  other 
picnickers.  Her  sister  stayed  close  beside  her 
and  guarded  and  guided  her. 

"  Let  *s  play  blind  man's  buff,"  one  of  the 
children  heedlessly  suggested  after  a  long 
course  of  "  drop-the-handkerchief." 

The  other  children  with  seeing  eyes  in- 
stantly looked  at  the  child  who  was  sightless, 
and  whispered,  "  Ssh !  You  '11  hurt  her  feel- 
ings!" 

But  the  little  blind  girl  scrambled  eagerly 
to  her  feet.  "Yes,"  she  said,  brightly ;  "let's 
play  blind  man's  buff!  /  can  be  '  It*  all  the 
time!" 

There  is  a  phrase  that  has  been  very  widely 
adopted  by  Americans.  Scarcely  one  of  us 
but  uses  it — "  playing  the  game."  Our  high- 
est commendation  of  a  man  or  a  woman  has 
come  to  be,  "He plays  the  game,"  or  "She 

58 


THE  CHILD  AT  PLAY 

plays  the  game."  Another  phrase,  often  upon 
our  lips,  is  "  according  to  the  rules  of  the 
game."  We  Americans  talk  of  the  most 
sacred  things  of  life  in  the  vocabulary  of  chil- 
dren at  play.  May  not  this  be  because  the 
children  of  our  Nation  play  so  well ;  so  much 
better  than  we  grown-ups  do  anything  ? 


.^ 


III 

THE   COUNTRY   CHILD 

One  spring,  not  long  ago,  a  friend  of  mine, 
knowing  that  I  had  a  desire  to  spend  the 
summer  in  the  "  real  country,"  said  to  me, 
"  Why  don't  you  go  to  a  farm  somewhere 
in  New  England  ?  Nothing  could  be  more 
*  really  countrified '  than  that !  You  would 
get  what  you  want  there." 

Her  advice  rather  appealed  to  my  fancy. 
I  at  once  set  about  looking  for  a  New  Eng- 
land farmhouse  in  which  I  might  be  received 
as  a  "summer  boarder."  Hearing  of  one 
that  was  situated  in  a  particularly  healthful 
and  beautiful  section  of  New  England,  I  wrote 
to  the  woman  who  owned  and  operated  it, 
telling  her  what  I  required,  and  asking  her 
whether  or  no  she  could  provide  me  with  it. 
"  Above  all  things,"  I  concluded  my  letter, 
"  I  want  quiet." 

Her  somewhat  lengthy  reply  ended  with 
60 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

these  words :  "  The  bedroom  just  over  the 
music-room  is  the  quietest  in  the  house,  be- 
cause no  one  is  in  the  music-room  excepting 
for  a  social  hour  after  supper.  I  can  let  you 
have  that  bedroom." 

My  friend  had  said  that  nothing  was  so 
"  really  countrified  "  as  a  New  England  farm. 
But  a  "  music-room,"  a  "  social  hour  after 
supper  !  "  The  terms  suggested  things  dis- 
tinctly urban. 

I  sent  another  letter  to  the  woman  to  whom 
this  amazing  farmhouse  belonged.  "  I  am 
afraid  I  cannot  come,"  I  wrote.  "  I  want  a 
simpler  place."  Then,  yielding  to  my  intense 
curiosity,  I  added:  "Are  many  of  your 
boarders  musical  ?  Is  the  music-room  for 
their  use? " 

"  No  place  could  be  simpler  than  this," 
she  answered,  by  return  mail.  "  I  don't 
know  whether  any  of  my  boarders  this  year 
will  be  musical  or  not.  Some  years  they 
have  been.  The  music-room  is  n*t  for  my 
boarders,  especially  ;  it  is  for  my  niece.  She 
is  very  musical,  but  she  does  n*t  get  much 
time  for  practising  in  the  summer." 
6i 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

She  went  on  to  say  that  she  hoped  I  would 
decide  to  take  the  bedroom  over  the  music- 
room.  I  did.  I  had  told  her  that,  above  all 
things,  I  desired  quiet ;  but,  after  reading  her 
letters,  I  think  I  wished,  above  all  things,  to 
see  the  music-room,  and  the  niece  who  was 
musical. 

"  She  will  probably  be  a  shy,  awkward 
girl,"  one  of  my  city  neighbors  said  to  me ; 
"and  no  doubt  she  will  play '  The  Maiden*s 
Prayer'  on  a  melodeon  which  will  occupy 
one  corner  of  the  back  sitting-room.  You 
will  see." 

In  order  to  reach  the  farm  it  was  necessary 
not  only  to  take  a  journey  on  a  train,  but 
also  to  drive  three  miles  over  a  hilly  road. 
The  little  station  at  which  I  changed  from 
the  train  to  an  open  two-seated  carriage  in 
waiting  for  me  was  the  usual  rural  village, 
with  its  one  main  street,  its  commingled 
post-office  and  dry-goods  and  grocery  store, 
and  its  small  white  meeting-house. 

The  farm,  as  we  approached  it,  called  to 
mind  the  pictures  of  old  New  England  farms 
with  which  all  of  us  are  familiar.  The  house 
62 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

itself  was  over  a  hundred  years  old,  I  after- 
ward learned ;  and  had  for  that  length  of 
time "  been  in  the  family  "  of  the  woman 
with  whom  I  had  corresponded. 

She  was  on  the  broad  doorstone  smiling 
a  welcome  when,  after  an  hour's  drive,  the 
carriage  at  last  came  to  a  stop.  Beside  her 
was  her  niece,  the  girl  whom  I  had  been  so 
impatient  to  meet.  She  was  neither  shy  nor 
awkward. 

"  Are  you  tired?"  she  inquired.  "What 
should  you  like  to  do  ?  Go  to  your  room 
or  rest  downstairs  until  supper-time  ?  Sup- 
per will  be  ready  in  about  twenty  minutes." 

"I  *d  like  to  see  the  music-room,"  I  found 
myself  saying. 

"  Oh,"  exclaimed  the  girl,  her  face  bright- 
ening, "  are  you  musical  ?  How  nice  !" 

As  she  spoke  she  led  the  way  into  the 
music-room.  It  was  indeed  a  back  sitting- 
room.  Its  windows  opened  upon  the  barn- 
yard ;  glancing  out,  I  saw  eight  or  ten  cows, 
just  home  from  pasture,  pushing  their  ways 
to  the  drinking-trough.  I  looked  around  the 
little  room.  On  the  walls  were  framed  pho- 

63 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

tographs  of  great  composers,  on  the  mantel- 
shelf was  a  metronome,  on  the  centre-table 
were  two  collections  of  classic  piano  pieces, 
and  in  a  corner  was,  —  not  a  melodeon, — 
but  a  piano.  The  maker's  name  was  on  it 
—  a  name  famous  in  two  continents. 

"  Your  aunt  told  me  you  were  musical," 
I  said  to  the  girl.  "  I  see  that  the  piano  is 
your  instrument." 

"Yes,"  she  assented.  "But  I  don't  play 
very  well.  I  haven't  had  many  lessons. 
Only  one  year  with  a  really  good  teacher." 

"  Who  was  your  teacher  ?  "  I  asked  idly. 
I  fully  expected  her  to  say,  "  Some  one  in 
the  village  through  which  you  came." 

"  Perhaps  you  know  my  teacher,"  she 
replied  ;  and  she  mentioned  the  name  of  one 
of  the  best  pianists  and  piano  teachers  in 
New  England. 

"  Most  of  the  time  I  've  studied  by  my- 
self," she  went  on ;  "  but  one  year  auntie 
had  me  go  to  town  and  have  good  lessons." 

At  supper  this  girl  waited  on  the  table, 
and  after  supper  she  washed  the  dishes  and 
made  various  preparations  for  the  next 
64 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

morning's  breakfast.  Then  she  joined  her 
aunt  and  the  boarders,  of  whom  there  were 
nine,  on  the  veranda. 

"  I  should  so  like  to  hear  you  play  some- 
thing on  the  piano,"  I  said  to  her. 

She  at  once  arose,  and,  followed  by  me, 
went  into  the  music-room,  which  was  just 
off  the  veranda.  "  I  only  play  easy  things," 
she  said,  as  she  seated  herself  at  the  piano. 

Whereupon  she  played,  with  considerable 
skill,  one  of  Schumann's  simpler  composi- 
tions, one  of  Schubert's,  and  one  of  Grieg's. 
Then,  turning  around  on  the  piano-stool,  she 
asked  me,  "  Do  you  like  Debussy  ? " 

I  thought  of  what  my  neighbor  had  pro- 
phesied concerning  "The  Maiden's  Prayer." 
Debussy  !  And  this  girl  was  a  country  girl, 
born  and  bred  on  that  dairy  farm,  educated 
at  the  little  district  school  of  the  vicinity; 
and,  moreover,  trained  to  take  a  responsible 
part  in  the  work  of  the  farm  both  in  winter 
and  in  summer.  Her  family  for  generations 
had  been  "  country  people." 

It  was  not  surprising  that  she  had  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Debussy's  music ;  nor 
65 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

that  she  had  at  her  tongue's  end  all  the 
arguments  for  and  against  it.  Her  music- 
teacher  was,  of  course,  accountable  for  this. 
What  was  remarkable  was  that  she  had  had 
the  benefit  of  that  particular  teacher's  in- 
struction ;  that,  country  child  though  she 
was,  she  had  been  given  exactly  the  kind,  if 
not  the  amount,  of  musical  education  that  a 
city  child  of  musical  tastes  would  have  been 
given. 

My  neighbor  had  predicted  a  shy,  awk- 
ward girl,  a  melodeon,  and  "The  Maiden's 
Prayer."  One  of  our  favorite  fallacies  in 
America  is  that  our  country  people  are 
"countrified."  Nothing  could  be  further 
from  the  truth,  especially  in  that  most  im- 
portant matter,  the  up-bringing  of  their 
children.  Country  parents,  like  city  par- 
ents, try  to  get  the  best  for  their  children. 
That  "  best "  is  very  apt  to  be  identical  with 
what  city  parents  consider  best.  Circum- 
stances may  forbid  their  giving  it  to  their 
children  as  lavishly  as  do  city  parents ;  con- 
ditions may  force  them  to  alter  it  in  various 
ways  in  order  to  fit  it  to  the  needs  of  boys 
66 


"THE  CHILDREN THEY  ARE  SUCH  DEARS !" 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

and  girls  who  live  on  a  farm,  and  not  on  a 
city  street ;  but  in  some  sort  they  attempt 
to  obtain  it,  and,  having  obtained  it,  to  give 
it  to  their  children. 

They  are  as  ambitious  for  the  education 
of  their  children  as  city  parents ;  and  to  an 
amazing  extent  they  provide  for  them  a  sim- 
ilar academic  training.  An  astonishing  pro- 
portion of  the  students  in  our  colleges  come 
from  country  homes,  in  which  they  have 
learned  to  desire  collegiate  experience;  from 
country  schools,  where  they  have  received 
the  preparation  necessary  to  pass  the  re- 
quired college  entrance  examinations.  Sur- 
rounded, as  we  in  cities  are,  by  schools  espe- 
cially planned,  especially  equipped,  to  make 
children  ready  for  college,  we  may  well  won- 
der how  country  children  in  rural  district 
schools,  with  their  casual  schedules  and 
meagre  facilities,  are  ever  so  prepared.  By 
visiting  even  a  few  district  schools  we  may 
in  part  discover. 

I  happened,  not  a  great  while  ago,  to 
spend  an  autumn  month  on  a  farm  in  a  very 
sparsely  settled  section  of  New  Hampshire. 

67 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

One  morning  at  breakfast,  shortly  after 
Labor  Day,  my  landlady  said:  "School 
opens  next  week.  The  teacher  is  coming 
here  to  board  for  the  winter.  I  expect  her 
to-day." 

"  Where  does  she  come  from  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  From  Smith  College,"  the  farmer  re- 
plied, unexpectedly.  "This  is  her  second 
year  of  teaching  our  school." 

The  school-teacher  arrived  late  in  the 
afternoon.  My  landlady  was  "  expecting  " 
her;  so  was  I,  no  less  eagerly. 

"  Why  were  you  interested  in  me?"  she 
inquired,  when,  on  further  acquaintance,  I 
confessed  this  to  her. 

"  Because,  with  a  training  that  fits  you 
for  work  in  a  carefully  graded  school  or  a 
college,  you  chose  to  teach  here.  Why  did 
you  ? " 

"  For  three  reasons,"  she  answered. 
"  Country  life  is  better  for  my  health  than 
city  life ;  the  people  around  here  are  thor- 
oughly awake  to  the  importance  of  educa- 
tion ;  and  the  children — they  are  such  dears ! 
You  must  see  them  when  school  opens." 
68 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

I  did  see  them  then.  Also,  I  saw  them 
before  that  time.  When  the  news  of  their 
teacher's  arrival  reached  them,  they  came  "  by 
two,  and  threes,  and  fuller  companies  "to  wel- 
come her.  They  ranged  in  age  from  a  boy  and 
a  girl  of  fifteen  to  two  little  girls  of  six.  Each 
and  every  one  was  rapturously  glad  to  see 
the  teacher;  they  all  brought  her  small  gifts, 
and  all  of  them  bore  messages  from  their 
homes,  comprising  a  score  of  invitations 
to  supper,  the  loan  of  a  tent  for  the  remain- 
der of  the  mild  weather,  and  the  offer  of  a 
"  lift "  to  and  from  school  on  stormy  days. 

The  teacher  accepted  these  tributes  as  a 
matter  of  course.  She  was  genuinely  glad 
to  see  her  old  pupils.  In  her  turn,  she  sent 
messages  to  their  several  homes,  and  gave 
into  the  children's  hands  tokens  she  had  pur- 
posely gathered  together  for  them.  "  We'll 
meet  on  Monday  at  the  school-house,"  she 
finally  said;  and  the  children,  instantly  re- 
sponding to  the  implied  suggestion,  bade  her 
good-bye,  and  went  running  down  the  dusty 
road.  Each  one  of  them  lived  at  least  a  mile 
away  ;  many  of  them  more  than  two  miles. 
69 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

On  Monday  I  accompanied  the  teacher 
to  school.  The  school-house  was  a  small, 
one-roomed,  wooden  building.  It  contained 
little  besides  a  few  rows  of  desks  and  benches 
for  the  children,  two  or  three  maps,  and 
blackboards,  a  tiny  closet  filled  with  worn 
books,  the  teacher's  desk,  and  a  coal  stove. 
But  it  had  windows  on  three  sides,  and  was 
set  down  in  the  midst  of  a  grassy  meadow 
bordered  with  a  stone  wall. 

There  were  fourteen  pupils.  They  w^ere 
all  assembled  in  the  school-yard  when  we 
arrived.  The  boys  were  playing  baseball, 
and  the  girls,  perched  on  the  stone  wall,  were 
watching  them.  The  moment  they  saw  the 
teacher  boys  and  girls  alike  came  to  escort 
her  to  her  place  in  the  school-house.  When 
she  was  in  it,  they  took  their  own  places  — 
those  they  had  occupied  during  the  former 
term.  There  was  one  "new"  pupil,  a  small 
boy.  He  had  been  so  frequently  a  "visiting 
scholar  "  the  previous  year  that  his  newness 
was  not  very  patent.  There  was  a  desk  that 
he  also  claimed  as  his. 

"  We  will  sing '  America,' "  were  the  words 

70 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

with  which  the  teacher  commenced  the  new 
school  year,  "  and  then  we  will  go  on  with 
our  work,  beginning  where  we  left  off  in  the 
spring." 

We  hear  a  great  deal  at  the  present  time 
concerning  the  education  of  the  "  particular 
child."  In  the  very  best  of  our  private 
schools  in  the  city  each  pupil  is  regarded  as 
a  separate  and  distinct  individual,  and  taught 
as  such.  This  ideal  condition  of  things  pre- 
vailed in  that  little  district  school  in  the 
farming  region  of  New  Hampshire.  That 
teacher  had  fourteen  pupils  ;  practically,  she 
had  fourteen  "  grades."  Even  when  it  hap- 
pened that  two  children  were  taught  the 
same  lesson,  each  one  was  taught  it  individ- 
ually. 

"  They  are  all  so  different  1 "  the  teacher 
said,  when  I  commented  upon  the  difference 
of  her  methods  with  the  various  children. 
"  That  boy,  who  hopes  to  go  to  college  and 
then  teach,  needs  to  get  one  thing  from  his 
history  lesson  ;  and  that  girl,  who  intends  to 
be  a  post-office  clerk  as  soon  as  she  finishes 
school,  needs  to  get  something  else." 
71 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

She  did  not  aim  to  prepare  her  pupils 
for  college.  The  district  school  was  only  a 
"grammar  school."  There  was  a  high  school 
in  the  nearest  village,  which  was  three  miles 
away;  she  made  her  pupils  ready  for  en- 
trance into  that.  In  order  to  attend  the  high 
school,  more  than  one  child  in  that  neigh- 
borhood, year  after  year,  in  sunshine  and 
storm,  walked  two  and  three  miles  twice 
daily.  Many  a  child  who  lived  still  farther 
away  was  provided  by  an  interested  father 
with  a  horse  and  a  conveyance  with  which 
to  make  the  two  journeys  a  day.  No  won- 
der the  teacher  of  that  district  school  felt 
that  the  people  in  the  neighborhood  were 
"  thoroughly  awake  to  the  importance  of 
education  " ! 

As  for  the  children  —  she  had  said  that 
they  were  "  such  dears  !  "  They  were.  I  re- 
member, in  particular,  two ;  a  brother  and 
sister.  She  was  eight  years  old,  and  he  was 
nine.  They  were  inseparable  companions. 
On  bright  days  they  ran  to  school  hand  in 
hand.  When  it  rained,  they  trudged  along 
the  muddy  road  under  one  umbrella. 
72 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

The  school-teacher  had  taught  the  little 
girl  George  Eliot's  poem  "  Brother  and  Sis- 
ter." She  could  repeat  it  word  for  word,  ex- 
cepting the  line,  "  I  held  him  wise."  She 
always  said  that,  "  I  hold  him  tight."  This 
"  piece  "  the  small  girl  "  spoke  "  on  a  Fri- 
day afternoon.  The  most  winning  part  of 
her  altogether  lovely  recitation  was  the  smile 
with  which  she  glanced  at  her  brother  as  she 
announced  its  title.  He  returned  her  smile; 
when  she  finished  her  performance,  he  led 
the  applause. 

Before  the  end  of  my  visit  I  became  very 
intimate  with  that  brother  and  sister.  I 
chanced  to  be  investigating  the  subject  of 
"juvenile  books." 

"  What  books  have  you  ? "  I  inquired  of 
the  little  girl. 

"  Ever  so  many  of  all  kinds,"  she  replied. 
"  Come  to  our  house  and  look  at  them," 
she  added  cordially. 

Their  house  proved  to  be  the  near-by 
farm.  One  of  the  best  in  that  section,  it  was 
heated  with  steam  and  furnished  with  run- 
ning water  and  plumbing.  It  had  also  a  lo- 

73 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

cal  and  long-distance  telephone.  The  bro- 
ther and  sister  were  but  two  of  a  family  of 
seven  children.  Their  father,  who  was  a 
member  of  the  school  committee,  and  their 
mother,  who  was  a  graduate  of  a  city  high 
school,  were  keenly  interested  in,  and,  more- 
over, very  well  informed  on,  the  subject  of 
pedagogy.  They  had  read  a  great  number 
of  books  relating  to  it,  and  were  in  the  habit 
of  following  in  the  newspapers  the  proce- 
dures of  the  National  Education  Associa- 
tion's Conventions. 

"Your  children  have  a  large  number  of 
exceedingly  good  books  !  "  I  exclaimed,  as  I 
looked  at  the  many  volumes  on  a  day  ap- 
pointed for  that  purpose  by  the  mother  of 
the  family.  "  I  wish  all  children  had  as  fine 
a  collection!" 

"  Country  children  must  have  books,'*  she 
replied,  "  if  they  are  going  to  be  educated  at 
all.  City  children  can  see  things,  and  learn 
about  them  that  way.  Country  children  have 
to  read  about  them  if  they  are  to  know  about 
them." 

The  books  were  of  many  types  —  poetry, 

74 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

fiction,  historical  stories,  nature  study,  and 
several  volumes  of  the  "  how  to  make  "  va- 
riety. All  of  these  were  of  the  best  of  their 
several  kinds  —  Identical  with  the  books 
found  in  the  "Children's  Room"  in  any 
well-selected  public  library.  Some  of  them 
had  been  gifts  to  the  children  from  "  sum- 
mer boarders,"  but  the  majority  had  been 
chosen  and  purchased  by  their  parents. 

"  We  hunt  up  the  names  of  good  books 
for  children  in  the  book  review  departments 
of  the  magazines,"  the  mother  said. 

When  I  asked  what  magazines,  she  men- 
tioned three.  Two  she  and  her  husband 
"took";  the  other  she  borrowed  monthly 
from  a  neighbor,  on  an  "  exchange  "  basis. 

No  other  children  in  that  region  were  so 
abundantly  supplied  with  books ;  but  all 
whom  I  met  liked  to  read.  Their  parents, 
in  most  cases  unable  to  give  them  numerous 
books,  had,  in  almost  every  instance,  taught 
them  to  love  reading. 

One  boy  with  whom  I  became  friends 
had  a  birthday  while  I  was  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. I  had  heard  him  express  a  longing  to 

75 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

read  "  The  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,"  which 
neither  he  nor  any  other  child  in  the  vicin- 
ity possessed,  so  I  presented  him  with  a  copy 
of  it. 

"  Would  you  mind  if  I  gave  it  to  the  li- 
brary ? "  he  asked.  "  Then  the  other  child- 
ren around  could  read  it,  too." 

"  The  library !  "  I  exclaimed. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mean  the  one  down  in  the 
village,"  he  hastened  to  explain.  "I  mean  the 
one  here,  near  us.  Have  n't  you  been  to  it  ?  " 

When  he  found  that  I  had  not,  he  offered 
to  go  with  me  to  see  it.  It  turned  out  to  be 
a  "lean-to"  in  a  farmhouse  that  was  in  a 
rather  central  position  with  relation  to  the 
surrounding  farms.  The  library  consisted  of 
about  two  hundred  volumes.  The  librarian 
was  an  elderly  woman  who  lived  in  the  house. 
One  was  allowed,  she  told  me,  to  take  out 
as  many  books  as  one  wished,  and  to  keep 
them  until  one  had  finished  reading  them. 

"  Do  you  want  to  take  out  any  ? "  she  in- 
quired. 

After  examining  the  four  or  five  shelves 
that  comprised  the  library,  I  wanted  to  take 
76 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

out  at  least  fifty.  The  books,  especially  the 
"juvenile  books,"  were  those  of  a  former 
generation.  Foremost  among  them  were  the 
"Rollo  Books,"  "Sandford  and  Merton," 
Mary  Howitt's  "  Story-Book,"  and  "The 
Parents*  Assistant." 

"  Who  selected  the  books  ?  "  I  asked. 

"Nobody  exactly  selected  them  y*  the  libra- 
rian said.  "  Every  one  around  here  gave  a  few 
from  their  collections,  so*s  we  could  have  a 
near-to  library — principally  on  account  of 
the  children.  I  live  most  convenient  to  every 
one  hereabouts  ;  so  I  had  shelves  put  up  in 
my  lean-to  for  them." 

News  travels  very  rapidly  indeed  in  the 
country.  My  boy  friend  told  some  of  the 
other  children  that  I  was  reading  the  oldesf 
books  in  the  library.  "  She  takes  them  out 
by  the  armfuls,"  I  overheard  him  remark. 

No  doubt  he  made  more  comments  that 
I  did  not  overhear ;  for  one  morning  a  small 
girl  called  to  see  me,  and,  after  a  few  prelim- 
inaries, said, "  If  you  are  through  with  '  The 
Fairchild  Family,'  may  I  have  it?  You  like 
it  awfully  much,  don't  you?" 

77 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

Not  only  in  the  secular  teaching  of  their 
children  do  thoughtful  country  parents,  in 
common  with  careful  fathers  and  mothers 
living  elsewhere,  try  to  obtain  the  best  means 
and  to  use  them  to  the  best  ends ;  in  the  re- 
ligious instruction  of  their  children  they  make 
a  similar  attempt.  They  are  not  content  to 
let  their  children  learn  entirely  at  home,  to 
depend  solely  upon  parental  guidance.  The 
church,  and  even  the  Sunday  school,  are  in- 
tegral parts  in  the  up-bringing  of  the  most 
happily  situated  country  children.  The  little 
white  meeting-houses  in  the  small  rural 
villages  are  familiar  places  to  the  country 
child  —  joyously  familiar  places,  at  that. 
The  only  weekly  outing  that  falls  to  the 
lot  of  the  younger  children  of  country 
parents  is  the  Sunday  trip  to  church  and 
Sunday  school. 

What  do  they  get  from  it  ?  Undoubtedly, 
very  much  what  city  children  receive  from  the 
church  and  the  Sunday  school — in  quantity 
and  in  quality.  There  is  a  constant  pleasure 
from  the  singing ;  an  occasional  glimmer  of 
illumination  from  the  sermon ;  and  an  un- 

78 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

failing  delight  from  the  Bible  stories.  We  can 
be  reasonably  sure  that  all  children  get  thus 
much  from  the  habitual  church  and  Sunday- 
school  attendance.  Some,  irrespective  of  city 
or  country  environment,  glean  more. 

A  small  country  boy  of  my  acquaintance 
brought  from  Sunday  school  one  of  the  most 
unique  versions  of  a  Scriptural  passage  with 
which  I  have  ever  met.  "Did  you  go  to 
church  this  morning  ? "  I  inquired  of  him,  one 
Sunday  afternoon,  when,  catching  a  glimpse 
of  me  under  the  trees  near  his  home,  he  came, 
as  he  explained,  to  "  pass  the  time  of  day  " 
with  me. 

"  Yes,"  he  answered ;  "  and  I  went  to  Sun- 
day school,  too." 

"  And  what  was  your  lesson  about  ? "  I 
asked. 

"  Oh,  about  the  roses  —  " 

"  Roses  ?  "  I  interrupted,  in  surprise. 

"  Yes,"  the  little  boy  went  on  ;  "  the  roses 
—  you  know  —  in  the  gardens." 

"  I  don't  remember  any  Sunday-school 
lesson  about  them,"  I  said. 

"  But  there  is  one ;  we  had  it  to-day.  The 

79 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

roses,  they  made  the  children  have  good 
manners.  Then,  one  day,  the  children  were 
greedy  ;  and  their  manners  were  bad.  Don't 
you  know  about  it  ?  "  he  added  anxiously. 

He  was  but  five  years  old.  I  told  him 
about  Moses';  I  explained  painstakingly  just 
who  the  Children  of  Israel  were ;  and  I  did 
my  best  to  point  out  clearly  the  difference 
between  manna  and  manners.  He  listened 
with  seeming  understanding ;  but  the  next 
day,  coming  upon  me  as  I  was  fastening  a 
"  crimson  rambler  "  to  its  trellis,  he  inquired 
solemnly,  "  Can  the  roses  make  children 
have  good  manners,  yet  ?  " 

Country  children  are  taught,  even  as  sedu- 
lously as  city  children,  the  importance  of  good 
manners  !  On  the  farm,  as  elsewhere,  the 
small  left  hand  is  seized  in  time  by  a  mother 
or  an  aunt  with  the  well-worn  words,  "  Shake 
hands  with  the  right  hand,  dear."  "  If  you 
please,"  as  promptly  does  an  elder  sister  sup- 
plement the  little  child's  "  Yes,"  on  the  oc- 
casion of  an  offer  of  candy  from  a  grown-up 
friend.  The  proportion  of  small  boys  who 
make  their  bows  and  of  little  girls  who  drop 
80 


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A  SMALL  COUNTRY  BOY 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

their  courtesies  is  much  the  same  in  the 
country  as  it  is  in  the  city. 

In  the  matter  of  clothes,  too,  the  country 
mother,  like  any  other  mother  in  America, 
wishes  her  children  to  be  becomingly  attired, 
in  full  accord  with  such  of  the  prevailing 
fashions  as  seem  to  her  most  suitable.  In 
company  with  the  greater  portion  of  Amer- 
ican mothers,  she  devotes  considerable  time 
and  strength  and  money  to  the  wardrobes  of 
her  boys  and  girls.  The  result  is  that  country 
children  are  dressed  strikingly  like  city  child- 
ren. Their  "everyday  "garments  are  scarcely 
distinguishable  from  the  "  play  clothes  "  of 
city  children;  their  "Sunday"  clothes  are 
very  similar  to  the  "best"  habiliments  of  the 
boys  and  girls  who  do  not  live  in  the 
country. 

We  have  all  read,  in  the  books  of  our 
grandmothers*  childhood,  of  the  children 
who,  on  the  eve  of  going  to  visit  their  city 
cousins,  were  much  exercised  concerning  their 
wearing  apparel.  "  Would  the  pink  frock, 
with  the  green  sash,  he  just  what  was  being 
worn  to  parties  in  the  city  ? "  the  little  girl  of 
8i 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

such  story-books  fearfully  wondered.  "  Will 
boys  of  my  age  be  wearing  short  trousers 
still?''  the  small  boy  dubiously  queried.  In- 
variably it  transpired  that  pink  frocks  and 
green  sashes,  if  in  fashion  at  all,  were  never 
seen  at  parties;  and  that  long  trousers  were 
absolutely  essential,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  custom,  for  boys  of  our  heroes  age.  Many 
woes  were  attendant  upon  the  discovery  that 
these  half-suspected  sumptuary  laws  were 
certain  facts. 

No  present-day  country  boy  and  girl,  com- 
ing from  the  average  home  to  the  house  of  city 
cousins,  would  need  to  feel  any  such  qualms* 
Should  they,  five  minutes'  inspection  of  the 
garments  of  those  city  cousins  would  relieve 
their  latent  questionings.  They  would  see 
that,  to  the  casual  eye,  they  and  their  cousins 
were  dressed  in  the  same  type  of  raiment. 

How  could  they  fail  to  be?  A  large  crop 
of  "fashion  magazines"  flourishes  in  Amer- 
ica. The  rural  free  delivery  brings  them  to 
the  very  doors  of  the  farmhouse.  By  the 
use  of  mail  orders  the  mother  on  the  farm 
can  obtain  whatever  materials  the  particular 
82 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

"fashion  magazine"  to  which  she  is  a  sub- 
scriber advises,  together  with  paper  patterns 
from  which  she  can  cut  anything,  from 
"jumpers"  to  a  "coat  for  gala  occasions." 

The  approved  clothes  of  all  American 
children  in  our  time  are  so  exceedingly  simple 
in  design  that  any  woman  who  can  sew  at 
all  can  construct  them  ;  and,  in  the  main,  the 
materials  of  which  they  are  made  are  so  inex- 
pensive that  even  the  farmer  whose  income 
is  moderate  in  size  can  afford  to  supply  them. 
A  clergyman  who  had  worked  both  in  city 
and  in  country  parishes  once  told  me  that  he 
attributed  the  marked  increase  in  ease  and 
grace  of  manner  —  and,  consequently,  in 
"sociability  "  —  among  country  people  to- 
day, as  compared  with  country  people  of  his 
boyhood,  very  largely  to  the  invention  of 
paper  patterns. 

"  Rural  folk  dressed  in  a  way  peculiar  to 
themselves  then,"  he  said  ;  "now  they  dress 
like  the  rest  of  the  world.  It  is  curious," 
he  went  on,  reflectively, "  but  human  beings, 
as  a  whole,  seem  unable  not  to  be  awkward 
in  their  behavior  if  their  costumes  can  pos- 

83 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

sibly  be  differentiated  otherwise  than  by- 
size!" 

It  is  another  queer  fact  that  normal  per- 
sons would  seem  to  require  "  best'*  clothes. 
They  share  the  spirit  of  Jess,  in  "  A  Window 
in  Thrums."  "  But  you  could  never  wear 
yours,  though  ye  had  ane,"  said  Hendry  to 
her  about  the  "cloak  with  beads"  ;  "ye 
would  juist  hae  to  lock  it  awa  in  the 
drawers."  "Aye,"  Jess  retorted,  "but  I 
would  aye  ken  it  was  there." 

I  have  an  acquaintance  who  is  not  normal 
in  this  matter.  She  scorns  "finery,"  whether 
for  use  or  for  "  locking  awa."  One  summer 
she  and  I  spent  a  fortnight  together  on  a 
Connecticut  farm.  During  the  week  the 
farmer  and  his  wife,  as  well  as  their  two  little 
children,  a  girl  and  a  boy,  wore  garments 
of  dark-colored  denim  very  plainly  made. 
The  children  were  barefooted. 

"  These  people  have  sense,"  my  acquaint- 
ance observed  to  me  on  the  first  day  of  our 
sojourn  ;  "  they  dress  in  harmony  with  their 
environment." 

I  was  silent,  realizing  that,  if  Sunday  were 

84 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

a  fine  day,  she  might  feel  compelled  to  mod- 
ify her  approbation.  On  Saturday  night  the 
farmer  asked  if  we  should  care  to  accompany 
the  family  to  church  the  next  morning.  Both 
of  us  accepted  the  invitation. 

Sunday  morning,  as  I  had  foreseen,  when 
the  family  assembled  to  take  its  places  in  the 
"  three-seater,"  the  father  was  in  "  blacks,** 
with  a  "  boiled"  shirt;  the  mother,  a  pretty 
dark-eyed,  dark-haired  you  ng  woman,  a  pleas- 
ant picture  in  the  most  every-day  of  gar- 
ments, was  a  charming  sight,  in  a  rose-tinted 
wash  silk  and  a  Panama  hat  trimmed  with 
black  velvet.  As  for  the  boy  and  the  girl, 
they  were  arrayed  in  spotless  white,  from 
their  straw  hats  even  to  their  canvas  shoes. 
The  hands  of  the  farmer  and  his  son  were 
uncovered ;  but  the  mother  and  her  little 
daughter  wore  white  lisle  gloves.  They  also 
carried  parasols  —  the  mother's  of  the  shade 
of  her  dress,  the  girl's  pale  blue.  No  family 
in  America  could  possibly  have  looked  more 
"blithe  and  bonny"  than  did  that  one  in 
"  Sunday  "  clothes,  ready  for  church. 

The  face  of  my  acquaintance  was  a  study. 
85 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

In  it  were  mingled  surprise  and  disapproval. 
Both  these  elements  became  more  pro- 
nounced when  we  were  fairly  in  the  meeting- 
house. All  the  men,  women,  and  children 
there  assembled  were  also  in  "  Sunday " 
clothes. 

My  acquaintance  has  the  instinct  of  the 
reformer.  Hardly  were  we  settled  in  the 
"  three-seater,"  preparatory  to  returning 
home  after  the  service,  when  she  began. 
"  Do  you  make  your  own  clothes  ?  "  she  in- 
quired of  the  farmer's  wife. 

"  Yes,"  was  the  reply  ; "  and  the  children's, 
too." 

"  Is  n't  there  a  great  deal  of  work  involved 
in  the  care  of  such  garments  as  you  are  all 
wearing  to-day  ? "  she  further  pursued. 

"  I  suppose  there  is  the  usual  amount,"  the 
other  woman  said,  dryly. 

"  Then,  why  do  you  do  it  —  living  in  the 
country,  as  you  do?  " 

''There  is  no  reason  why  people  should  n't 

dress  nicely,  no  matter  where  they  happen 

to  live,"  was  the  answer.  "  During  the  week 

we  can't;  but  on  Sunday  we  can,  and  do, and 

86 


ARRAYED  IN  SPOTLESS  WHITE 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

ought — out  of  respect  to  the  day,"  she 
quaintly  added. 

The  city  is  not  a  mere  name  to  American 
country  children.  Increased  train  facilities, 
the  improvement  in  the  character  of  country 
roads  brought  about  by  the  advent  of  the 
automobile,  and  the  extension  of  the  trolley 
system  have  done  much  to  mitigate  the  iso- 
lation of  rural  communities.  The  farmer  and 
his  wife  can  avail  themselves  of  the  advan- 
tages to  be  found  in  periodical  trips  to  the 
nearest  city.  Like  other  American  parents, 
they  invite  their  children  to  share  their  in- 
terests. The  boys  and  girls  are  included  in 
thejauntings  to  the  city. 

I  once  said  to  a  little  girl  whom  I  met  on 
a  farm  in  Massachusetts  :  "You  must  come 
soon  and  stay  with  me  in  the  city  from  Sat- 
urday until  Monday.  We  will  go  to  the  Art 
Museum  and  look  at  the  pictures." 

"  Oh,"  she  cried,  joyously,  "  I  'd  love  to  ! 
Every  time  we  go  to  town,  and  there  is  a 
chance,  mother  and  I  go  to  the  Museum  ; 
we  both  like  the  pictures  so  much." 

This  little  girl,  when  she  was  older,  desired 

87 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

to  become  a  kindergartner.  There  was  a 
training-school  in  the  near-by  city.  She 
could  not  afford  to  go  to  and  fro  on  the  train, 
but  there  was  a  trolley.  The  journey  on  the 
trolley  occupied  three  hours,  but  the  girl  took 
it  twice  daily  for  two  years. 

"  Does  n't  it  tire  you  ?"  I  asked  her. 

"Oh,  somewhat,"  she  admitted;  "but  I 
was  already  used  to  it.  We  usually  traveled 
to  town  on  it  when  I  was  small." 

"  Countrified  "  is  not  the  word  to  apply 
to  American  farmers  and  their  families.  One 
might  as  aptly  employ  it  when  describing  the 
people  of  England  who  live  on  their  "  landed 
estates."  Ignorance  and  dullness  and  awk- 
wardness we  shall  not  often  find  among 
country  children.  The  boys  and  girls  on  the 
farms  are  as  well  informed,  as  mentally  alert, 
and  as  attractive  as  children  in  any  other  good 
homes  in  America. 

We  all  know  Mr.  James  Whitcomb  Riley's 
poem, "  Little  Cousin  Jasper."  The  country 
boy  in  it,  we  recall,  concluded  his  reflections 
upon  the  happier  fortune  of  the  boy  from 
the  "city"  of  Rensselaer  with  these  words: 
88 


THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

"  Wish^t  our  town  ain't  like  it  is!  — 
Wishst  it's  ist  as  big  as  his! 
Wishst  'at  his  folks  they  'd  move  here. 
An'  we  '</  move  to  Rensselaer ! ' ' 

Only  last  summer  I  repeated  this  poem  to 
a  little  girl  whose  home  was  a  farm  not  far 
from  a  house  at  which  I  was  stopping. 

"  But/'  she  said,  in  a  puzzled  tone  of  voice, 
"no  place  is  as  big  as  the  country !  Look !  " 
she  exclaimed,  pointing  to  the  distant  hori- 
zon; "it's  so  big  it  touches  the  edge  of  the 
sky!  No  city  is  that  big,  is  it?" 


IV 

THE   CHILD   IN   SCHOOL 

An  elderly  woman  was  talking  to  me  not 
long  ago  about  her  childhood. 

"  No,  my  dear,  I  did  not  have  a  govern- 
ess," she  said,  in  answer  to  my  questionings. 
^'  Neither  did  I  attend  the  public  schools, 
though  I  lived  in  the  city.  I  went  to  a  priv- 
ate school.  The  pupils  in  it  were  the  girls 
of  the  little  social  circle  to  which  my  pa- 
rents belonged.  There  were  perhaps  twenty 
of  us  in  all.  And  there  were  three  teachers ; 
one  for  the  'first  class,*  one  for  the  'second 
class,'  and  a  French-German-music-and- 
drawing-teacher-in-one  for  both  classes." 

"And  what  did  you  study  ?  "   I  asked. 

"  Besides  French,  German,  music,  and 
drawing? "  my  elderly  friend  mused.  "  Well, 
we  had  the  three  R's;  and  history,  English 
and  American,  and  geography,  and  deport- 
ment. I  think  that  was  all." 
90 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

"  And  you  liked  it  ?  "  I  ventured. 

"Yes,  my  dear,  I  did,"  replied  my  friend, 
"though  I  used  to  pretend  that  I  didn't. 
I  sometimes  even  'played  sick'  in  order  to 
be  allowed  to  stay  home  from  school.  Chil- 
dren then,  as  now,  thought  they  ought  to 
'  hate  to  go  to  school.'  I  believe  most  of  them 
did,  too.  I  happened  to  be  a  *  smart '  child ;  so 
I  liked  school.  I  suppose  '  smart '  children 
still  do." 

A  "smart"  child!  In  my  mind's  eye  I 
can  see  my  elderly  friend  as  one,  sitting  at 
the  "  head  "  of  her  class,  on  a  long,  narrow 
bench,  her  eyes  shining  with  a  pleased  con- 
sciousness of  "  knowing  "  the  lesson,  her 
cheeks  rosy  with  expectation  of  the  triumph 
sure  to  follow  her  "  saying  "  of  it,  her  lips 
parted  in  an  eagerness  to  begin.  Can  we  not 
all  see  her,  that  "  smart "  child  of  two  gen- 
erations ago  ? 

As  for  her  lesson,  can  we  not  hear  it  with 
our  mind's  ear?  In  arithmetic,  it  was  the 
multiplication  table  ;  in  English  history,  the 
names  of  the  sovereigns  and  the  dates  of 
their  reigns ;  in  geography,  the  capitals  of 

91 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

the  world;  in  deportment  —  ah,  in  deport- 
ment, a  finer  lesson  than  any  of  our  schools 
teach  now!  These  were  the  lessons.  Indeed, 
my  elderly  friend  has  told  me  as  much. 
"  And  not  easy  lessons,  either,  my  dear, 
nor  easily  learned,  as  the  lessons  of  school- 
children seem  to  be  to-day.  We  had  no 
kindergartens ;  the  idea  that  lessons  were 
play  had  not  come  in ;  to  us  lessons  were 
work,  and  hard  work." 

My  friend  gave  a  little  sigh  and  shook  her 
head  ever  so  slightly  as  she  concluded.  It 
was  plain  that  she  deprecated  modern  edu- 
cational methods.  "  Schools  have  changed," 
she  added. 

And  has  not  the  attitude  of  children 
toward  going  to  school  changed  even  more  ? 
Do  many  of  them  "hate  to  go"?  Do  any 
of  them  at  all  think  they  "ought  to  hate  to 
go"?  Is  a  single  one  "smart"  in  the  old- 
time  sense  of  the  word  ? 

A  winter  or  two  ago  I  was  recovering  from 
an  illness  in  a  house  which,  by  great  good 
fortune,  chanced  to  be  situated  on  a  subur- 
ban street  corner,  not  only  near  a  large  pub- 
92 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

lie  school,  but  directly  on  the  main  route  of 
the  children  going  to  and  from  it.  My  chief 
pleasure  during  that  shut-in  winter  was 
watching  those  children.    Four  times  a  day 

—  at  half-past  eight,  at  half-past  twelve,  at 
half-past  one,  and  at  half-past  three  —  I 
would  take  the  window  to  see  them  going 
by.  They  were  of  many  ages  and  sizes;  from 
the  kindergarten  babies  to  the  boys  and  girls 
of  the  ninth  grade.  None  of  them  could  pos- 
sibly have  been  described  as  "creeping  like 
snail  unwillingly  to  school."  As  a  usual 
thing,  they  came  racing  pell-mell  down  the 
three  streets  that  converged  at  my  corner; 
after  school  they  as  tumultuously  went  rac- 
ing up,  homeward.  I  never  needed  to  con- 
sult the  clock  in  order  not  to  miss  seeing 
the  children.  When  I  heard  from  outside 
distant  sounds  of  laughing  and  shouting,  I 
knew  that  a  school  session  had  just  ended 

—  or  was  about  to  begin.  Which,  I  could 
only  tell  by  noting  the  time.  The  same  joy- 
ous turmoil  heralded  the  one  as  celebrated 
the  other.  Clearly,these  children,  at  least,  did 
not  "  hate  to  go  to  school "  ! 

93 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

One  of  them,  a  little  boy  of  nine,  a  friend 
and  near  neighbor  of  mine,  liked  it  so  well 
that  enforced  absence  from  it  constituted  a 
punishment  for  a  major  trangression.  "  Is  n*t 
your  boy  well?"  I  inquired  of  his  mother 
when  she  came  to  call  one  evening.  "  A 
playmate  of  his  who  was  here  this  afternoon 
told  me  that  he  had  not  been  in  school  to- 
day." 

"  Oh,  yes,  he  is  perfectly  well !  "  my  friend 
exclaimed.  "  But  he  is  being  disciplined  —  " 

"  Disciplined  ?  "  I  said.  "  Has  he  been  so 
insubordinate  as  that  in  school  ?  " 

"Not  in  school,"  the  boy's  mother  said; 
"at  home."  Then, seeing  my  bewilderment, 
she  elucidated.  "  When  he  is  very  naughty 
at  home,  I  keep  him  out  of  school.  It  pun- 
ishes him  more  than  anything  else,  because 
he  loves  to  go  to  school." 

Another  aspect  of  the  subject  presented 
itself  to  my  mind.  "  I  should  think  he  would 
fall  behind  in  his  studies,"  1  commented. 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  replied  ;  "  he  does  n't. 
Children  don't  fall  behind  in  their  studies  in 
these  days,"  she  added.  "  They  don't  get  a 

94 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

chance.  Every  single  lesson  they  miss  their 
teachers  require  them  to  '  make  up.*  When 
my  boy  is  absent  for  a  day,  or  even  for  only 
half  a  day,  his  teacher  sees  that  he '  makes  up  * 
the  lessons  lost  before  the  end  of  the  week. 
When  I  was  a  child,  and  happened  to  be 
absent,  no  teacher  troubled  about  my  lost 
lessons  !  /  did  all  the  troubling  !  I  labori- 
ously 'made  them  up  * ;  the  thought  of  ex- 
amination dayscoming  along  spurred  me  on." 

Those  examination  days  !  How  amazed, 
almost  amused,  our  child  friends  are  when 
we,  of  whose  school-days  they  were  such 
large  and  impressive  milestones,  describe 
them  !  A  short  time  ago  I  was  visiting  an 
old  schoolmate  of  mine.  "  Tell  me  what 
school  was  like  when  you  and  mother  went," 
her  little  girl  of  ten  besought  me. 

So  I  told  her.  I  dwelt  upon  those  aspects 
of  it  differing  most  from  school  as  she  knows 
it — ^the  "Scholarship  Medal,"  the  "Prize 
for  Bible  History,"  and  the  other  awards,  the 
bestowal  of  which  made  "  Commencement 
Morning"  of  each  year  a  festival  unequaled, 
to  the  pupils  of  "  our  "  school,  by  any  uni- 

95 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

verslty  commencement  in  the  land,  however 
many  and  brilliant  the  number  of  its  recipi- 
ents of"  honorary  degrees."  I  touched  upon 
the  ease  with  which  even  the  least  remark- 
able pupil  in  that  school  could  repeat  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  recount 
the  "  causes "  of  the  French  Revolution. 
Finally,  I  mentioned  our  examination  days 
—  six  in  January,  six  more  in  June. 

"  What  did  you  do  on  them  ?  "  inquired 
the  little  girl. 

"  Will  you  listen  to  that  ?  "  demanded  her 
mother.  "Ten  years  old  —  and  she  asks 
what  we  did  on  examination  days  !  This  is 
what  it  means  to  belong  to  the  rising  genera- 
tion—  not  to  know,  at  ten,  anything  about 
examination  days  ! " 

"  What  did  you  do  on  them  ? "  the  little 
girl  persisted. 

"We  had  examinations,"  I  explained. 
"All  our  books  were  taken  away,  and  we 
were  given  paper  and  pen  and  ink  —  " 

"  And  three  hours  for  each  examination," 
my  friend  broke  in.  "  We  had  one  in  the 
morning  and  another  in  the  afternoon." 

96 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

"Yes,"  I  went  on.  "One  morning  we 
would  have  a  grammar  examination.  Twenty 
questions  would  be  written  on  the  blackboard 
by  our  teacher,  and  we  would  write  the 
answers  —  in  three  hours.  On  another  morn- 
ing, or  on  the  afternoon  of  that  same  day, 
we  might  have  an  arithmetic  examination. 
There  would  be  twenty  questions,  and  three 
hours  to  answer  them  in,  just  the  same." 

"  Do  you  understand,  dear  ? "  said  the  little 
girl's  mother.  "  Well,  well,"  she  went  on, 
turning  to  me  before  the  child  could  reply, 
"  how  this  talk  brings  examination  days  back 
to  my  remembrance !  What  excitement  there 
was  !  And  how  we  worked  getting  ready  for 
them  !  I  really  think  it  was  a  matter  of  pride 
with  us  to  be  so  tired  after  our  last  examin- 
ation of  the  week  that  we  had  to  go  to  bed 
and  dine  on  milk  toast  and  a  soft-boiled 

egg!"    _         _ 

The  little  girl  was  looking  at  us  with  round 
eyes. 

"  Does  it  all  sound  very  queer?"  I  asked. 

"  The  going  to  bed  does,"  she  made  reply ; 
"and  the  milk  toast  and  the  egg  for  dinner, 

97 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

and  the  working  hard.  The  examinations 
sound  something  like  the  tests  we  have. 
T!hey  are  questions  to  write  answers  to,  but 
we  don't  think  much  about  them.  I  don't 
believe  any  of  the  girls  or  boys  go  to  bed 
afterwards,  or  have  milk  toast  and  eggs  for 
dinner — on  purpose  because  they  have  had 
a  test ! " 

She  was  manifestly  puzzled.  "  Perhaps  it 
is  because  we  have  tests  about  every  two 
weeks,  and  not  just  in  January  and  June," 
she  suggested. 

She  did  not  seem  disposed  to  investigate 
further  the  subject  of  her  mother's  and  my 
school-days.  In  a  few  moments  she  ran  off 
to  her  play. 

When  she  was  quite  out  of  hearing  her 
mother  burst  into  a  hearty  laugh.  "  Poor 
child  !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  She  thinks  we  and 
our  school  were  very  curious.  I  wonder 
why,"  she  continued  more  seriously,  "  we 
did  take  examinations,  and  lessons,  too,  so 
weightily.  Children  don't  in  these  days. 
The  school-days  of  the  week  are  so  full  of 
holiday  spirit  for  them  that,  actually,  Satur- 
98 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

day  is  not  much  of  a  gala  day.  Think  of  what 
Saturday  was  to  us  !  What  glorious  times  we 
had !  Why,  Saturday  was  Saturday^  to  us ! 
Do  you  remember  the  things  we  did  ?  You 
wrote  poems  and  I  painted  pictures,  and  we 
read  stories,  and  '  acted '  them.  Then,  we 
had  our  gardens  in  the  spring,  and  our  ex- 
periments in  cake-baking  in  the  winter.  My 
girls  do  none  of  these  things  on  Saturday. 
The  day  is  not  to  them  what  it  was  to  us. 
I  wonder  what  makes  the  difference." 

I  had  often  wondered  ;  but  these  reflec- 
tions of  my  old  schoolmate  gave  me  an  inkling 
of  what  the  main  difference  is.  To  us,  school 
had  been  a  place  in  which  we  learned  lessons 
from  books  —  books  of  arithmetic,  books  of 
grammar,  or  other  purely  academic  books. 
For  five  days  of  the  week  our  childish  minds 
were  held  to  our  lessons ;  and  our  lessons, 
without  exception,  dealt  with  technicalities 
—  parts  of  speech,  laws  of  mathematics,  facts 
of  history,  definitions  of  the  terms  of  geogra- 
phy. Small  marvel  that  Saturday  was  a  gala 
day  to  us.  It  was  the  one  "  week  day  "  when 
we  might  be  unacademic ! 

99 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

But  children  of  the  present  time  have  no 
such  need  of  Saturday.  They  write  poems, 
and  paint  pictures,  and  read  stories,  and 
"  act "  them,  and  plant  gardens,  and  even 
bake  cake,  as  regular  parts  of  their  school 
routine.  The  schools  are  no  longer  solely, 
or  even  predominantly,  academic.  As  for 
technicalities,  where  are  they  in  the  schools 
of  to-day  ?  As  far  in  the  background  as  the 
teachers  can  keep  them.  Children  do  not 
study  grammar  now ;  they  are  given  "  lan- 
guage work."  It  entails  none  of  the  memo- 
rizing of  "  rules,"  "  exceptions,"  and  "  cau- 
tions "  that  the  former  study  of  grammar 
required.  History  would  seem  to  be  learned 
without  that  sometimelaying  hold  of"  dates." 
Geography  has  ceased  to  be  a  matter  of  the 
"bounding"  of  states  and  the  learning  of 
the  capitals  of  the  various  countries ;  it  has 
become  the  "story  of  the  earth."  And  arith- 
metic— it  is  "number  work"  now,  and  is 
all  but  taught  without  the  multiplication 
tables.  How  could  Saturday  be  to  the  chil- 
dren of  to-day  what  it  was  to  the  children  of 
yesterday  ? 

100 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL. 

My  old  schoolmate's  little  girl  had  spoken 
of  "tests."  In  my  school-days  we  called 
such  minor  weekly  or  fortnightly  matters  as 
these,  "reviews."  We  regarded  them  quite 
as  lightly  as  my  small  friend  looked  upon  her 
"tests."  Examinations  —  they  were  differ- 
ent, indeed.  Twice  a  year  we  were  expected 
to  stretch  our  short  memories  until  they 
neatly  covered  a  series  of  examination  pa- 
pers, each  composed  of  twenty  questions, 
relating  to  fully  sixteen  weeks'  accumulation 
of  accurate  data  on  the  several  subjects  — 
fortunately  few  —  we  had  so  academically 
been  studying.  It  is  little  wonder  that  chil- 
dren of  the  present  day  are  not  called  upon 
to  "  take  "  such  examinations ;  not  only  the 
manner  of  their  teaching,  but  the  great 
quantity  of  subjects  taught,  make  "  tests"  of 
frequent  occurrence  the  only  practicable  ex- 
aminations. 

"  Children  of  the  present  time  learn  about 
so  many  things ! "  sighed  a  middle-aged  friend 
of  mine  after  a  visit  to  the  school  which  her 
small  granddaughter  attended.  "  What  an 
array  of  subjects  are  brought  to  their  notice, 

lOI 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

from  love  of  country  to  domestic  science ! 
How  do  their  young  minds  hold  it? " 

I  am  rather  inclined  to  think  that  their 
young  minds  hold  it  very  much  as  young 
minds  of  one,  two,  or  three  generations  ago 
held  it.  After  all,  what  subjects  are  brought 
to  the  notice  of  present-day  children  that 
were  not  called  to  the  attention  of  children 
of  former  times  ?  The  difference  would 
seem  to  be,  not  that  the  children  of  to-day 
learn  about  more  things  than  did  the  children 
of  yesterday,  but  that  they  learn  about  more 
things  in  school.  Love  of  country — were  we 
not  all  taught  that  by  our  fathers  as  early 
and  as  well  as  the  children  are  taught  it  to- 
day by  their  teachers?  And  domestic  science 
—  did  not  mothers  teach  that,  not  only  to 
their  girls,  but  to  their  boys  also,  with  a  de- 
gree of  thoroughness  not  surpassed  even  by 
that  of  the  best  of  modern  domestic  science 
teachers  ?  The  subjects  to  be  brought  to  the 
notice  of  children  appear  to  be  so  fixed ;  the 
things  to  be  learned  by  them  seem  to  be  so 
slightly  alterable  !  It  is  only  the  place  of  in- 
struction that  has  shifted.  Such  a  quantity 

102 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

of  things  once  taught  entirely  at  home  are 
now  taught  partly  at  school. 

It  is  the  fashion,  I  know,  to  deplore  this. 
"  How  dreadful  it  is,"  we  hear  many  a  per- 
son exclaim,  "  that  things  that  used  to  be 
told  a  child  alone  at  its  mother's  knee  are 
now  told  whole  roomfuls  of  children  together 
in  school!'* 

Certainly  it  would  be  "  dreadful  "  should 
the  fact  that  children  are  taught  anything  in 
school  become  a  reason  to  parents  for  ceas- 
ing to  teach  them  that  same  thing  at  home. 
So  long  as  this  does  not  happen,  ought  we 
not  to  rejoice  that  children  are  given  the  op- 
portunity of  hearing  in  company  from  their 
teachers  what  they  have  already  heard  sep- 
arately from  their  fathers  and  mothers  ?  A 
boy  or  a  girl  who  has  heard  from  a  father  or 
a  mother,  in  intimate  personal  talk,  of  the 
beauty  of  truth,  the  beauty  of  purity,  the 
beauty  of  kindness,  is  fortified  in  an  endeavor 
to  hold  fast  to  these  things  by  hearing  a 
teacher  speak  of  them  in  a  public,  impersonal 
way. 

Indeed,  is  not  this  unity  between  the  home 
103 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

and  the  school  the  great  and  unique  fact  in 
the  education  of  the  children  of  the  present 
time  ?  They  are  taught  at  home,  as  children 
always  have  been,  and  doubtless  always  will 
be,  an  "array  of  subjects";  and  they  are 
taught  at  school,  as  children  perhaps  never 
before  were,  other  aspects  of  very  nearly  all 
the  matters  touched  upon  in  that  "  array." 
My  old  schoolmate  said  that  Saturday  had 
lost  the  glory  it  wore  in  her  school-days  and 
mine ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  what  has  ac- 
tually occurred  is  that  the  five  school-days  of 
the  week  have  taken  on  the  same  glory.  The 
joys  we  had  only  on  Saturday  children  have 
now  on  Monday,  Tuesday,  Wednesday, 
Thursday,  Friday,  and  Saturday  ! 

It  is  inevitable,  I  suppose,  that  they  should 
handle  our  old  delights  with  rather  a  profes- 
sional grasp.  One  day  recently  a  little  girl,  a 
new  acquaintance,  came  to  see  me.  I  brought 
out  various  toys,  left  over  from  my  child- 
hood, for  her  amusement  —  a  doll,  with 
the  trunk  that  still  contained  her  wardrobe  5,, 
an  autograph  album,  with  "  verses "  and 
sketches  in  it;  and  a  "joining  map,"  such 
tb4 


THEY  DO  SO  MANY  THINGS  ! 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

as  the  brother  of  Rosamond  of  the  Purple 
Jar  owned. 

My  small  caller  occupied  herself  with 
these  for  a  flattering  length  of  time,  then  she 
said:  "You  played  with  these  —  what  else 
did  you  play  with  ?  " 

"  J  made  paper-boats,"  I  replied  ;  "  and 
sailed  them.  I  will  show  you  how,"  I 
added. 

She  watched  me  with  interest  while  I 
folded  and  refolded  a  sheet  of  writing-paper 
until  it  became  a  boat. 

"There  !  "  I  said,  handing  it  to  her. 

"Have  you  any  more  paper  you  can 
spare  ?  "  she  questioned. 

"  Of  course,"  I  said.  "  Should  you  like 
me  to  make  you  more  boats? " 

"  I  *11  make  some  things  for  you^^  she  re- 
marked, "if  you  will  let  me  have  the  paper." 

I  offered  her  the  freedom  of  the  writing- 
paper  drawer ;  and,  while  I  looked  on,  she 
folded  and  refolded  with  a  practiced  hand, 
until  the  table  beside  us  was  covered,  not 
only  with  boats  compared  with  which  mine 
was  as  a  dory  to  an  ocean  liner,  but  also  with 
105 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

a  score  of  other  pretty  and  somewhat  intri- 
cate paper  toys. 

"Who  taught  you  to  make  all  these 
lovely  things?"  I  asked. 

"  My  teacher,"  answered  the  small  girl. 
"  We  all  do  it,  in  my  room  at  school,  every 
Friday." 

They  do  so  many  things !  Their  grown- 
up friends  are  hard  put  to  it  to  find  anything 
novel  to  do  with,  or  for,  them.  Not  long  ago 
a  little  boy  friend  of  mine  was  ill  with  scarlet 
fever.  His  "  case  "  was  so  light  that  the  main 
problem  attached  to  it  was  that  of  providing 
occupation  for  the  child  during  the  six  weeks 
of  quarantine  in  one  room.  Remembering 
the  pleasure  I  had  taken  as  a  child  in  plant- 
ing seeds  on  cotton  in  a  glass  of  water  and 
watching  them  grow  at  a  rate  almost  equal  to 
that  of  Jack's  beanstalk,  I  made  a  similar 
"little  garden"  and  sent  it  to  the  small 
boy. 

"  It  was  lots  of  fun,  having  it,"  he  said, 
when,  quite  well,  he  came  to  see  me.  "It 
grew  so  fast  —  faster  than  the  others." 

"  What  others  ?  "  I  queried. 
io6 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

"At  school,"  he  explained.  "We  have 
them  at  school ;  and  they  grow  fast,  but  the 
one  you  gave  me  grew  faster.  Was  that  be- 
cause it  was  in  a  little  glass  instead  of  a  big 
bowl  ? " 

I  could  not  tell  him.  We  had  not  had 
them  at  school  in  my  school-days  in  a  big 
bowl.  They  had  been  out-of-school  inci- 
dents, cultivated  only  in  little  glasses. 

They  have  so  many  things  at  school,  the 
children  of  to-day  !  If  many  of  these  things 
have  been  taken  from  the  home,  they  have 
only  been  taken  that  they  may,  as  it  were,  be 
carried  back  and  forth  between  the  home  and 
the  school. 

I  have  a  friend,  the  mother  of  an  only 
child,  a  boy  of  eight.  Her  husband's  work 
requires  that  the  family  live  in  a  section  of 
the  city  largely  populated  by  immigrants. 
The  one  school  in  the  vicinity  is  a  large 
public  school.  When  my  friend's  little  boy 
reached  the  "  school  age,"  he,  perforce,  was 
entered  at  this  school. 

"  You  are  an  American,"  his  father  said 
to  him  the  day  before  school  opened;  "not 
107 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

a  foreigner,  like  almost  every  child  you  will 
find  at  school.   Remember  that." 

"  He  does  n't  understand  what  you  mean 
when  you  talk  to  him  about  being  an  Ameri- 
can," the  boy's  mother  said  the  next  morn- 
ing as  we  all  watched  the  child  run  across  the 
street  to  the  school.  "  How  could  he,  living 
among  foreigners  ? " 

One  day,  about  two  months  later,  the 
small  boy's  birthday  being  near  at  hand,  his 
father  said  to  him,  "  If  some  one  were  plan- 
ning to  give  you  something,  what  should  you 
choose  to  have  it?" 

"  A  flag,"  the  boy  said  instantly ;  "  an 
American  flag  !   Our  flag  !  " 

"  Why  ?  "  the  father  asked,  almost  invol- 
untarily. 

"  To  salute,"  the  child  replied.  "  I  Ve 
learned  how  in  school  —  what  to  say  and 
what  to  do.  Americans  do  it  when  they 
love  their  country  —  like  you  told  me  to," 
he  added,  eagerly.  "Our  teacher  says  so. 
She's  taught  us  all  how  to  salute  the  flag. 
I  told  her  I  was  an  American,  not  a  for- 
eigner like  the  other  children.  And  she  said 
io8 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

they  could  be  Americans,  too,  if  they  wanted 
to  learn  how.  So  they  are  going  to." 

The  small  boy  got  his  flag.  The  patriotism 
taught  at  home  and  the  patriotism  taught  at 
school,  diverse  at  other  points,  met  and  min- 
gled at  that  one  most  fundamental  point. 

In  former  days  children  did  not  quote  their 
teachers  much  at  home,  nor  their  parents 
much  at  school.  They  do  both  in  these  days ; 
occasionally  with  comic  results.  A  little  girl 
of  my  acquaintance  whose  first  year  at  school 
began  less  than  a  month  ago  has,  I  observed 
only  yesterday,  seemed  to  learn  as  her  in- 
troductory lesson  to  pronounce  the  words 
"either  "  and  "  neither"  quite  unmistakably 
"ather  "  and  "nather." 

"  This  is  an  amazing  innovation,"  I  said  to 
her  mother.  "  How  did  she  ever  happen  to 
think  of  it?" 

"  Ask  her,"  said  her  mother  plaintively. 

I  did  inquire  of  the  little  girl.  "  Whom  have 
you  heard  say '  ather *  and  *  nather '  ? " 

"  Nobody,"  she  unexpectedly  answered. 

"  Then  how  did  you  learn  to  say  it? " 

«  Uncle  Billy  told  me  to—" 
109 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

This  uncle  is  an  instructor  of  English  in 
one  of  our  most  famous  colleges.  "  My  dear 
child,"  I  protested,  "  you  must  have  misun- 
derstood him  ! " 

"Oh,  no,"  she  affirmed  earnestly.  "You 
see,  papa  and  mamma  say  'eether*  and 
'neether,'  and  my  school-teacher  says'eye- 
ther'  and  'nyether.'  I  told  papa  and  mamma, 
and  they  said  to  say  them  the  way  my  teacher 
did;  and  I  told  my  teacher,  and  she  said  to 
say  them  the  way  papa  and  mamma  did!  I 
couldn't  say  them  two  ways  at  once;  and  I 
did  n't  know  which  one  way  to  say  them.  So 
Uncle  Billy  told  me,  if  he  were  doing  it,  he 
wouldn't  worry  about  it;  i?^  would  say  them 
'ather'and'nather'!" 

She  is  a  very  little  girl,  only  seven ;  and 
she  has  not  yet  rounded  out  her  first  month 
of  school.  I  suppose  before  she  has  been 
in  school  a  full  term  she  will  have  discovered 
the  impracticability  of  her  uncle's  method  of 
settHng  the  vexed  question  as  to  the  pronun- 
ciation of  "  either  "  and  "  neither."  Very 
likely  she  will  decide  to  say  them  "  eyether '* 
and  "  nyether,"  as  her  teacher  does. 
no 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

It  takes  the  children  so  short  a  time  to 
elevate  the  teacher  to  the  rank  of  final  arbi- 
ter in  their  intellectual  world.  So  soon,  they 
follow  her  footsteps  in  preference  to  any 
others  along  the  ways  of  education.  Not 
only  do  they  pronounce  words  as  she  pro- 
nounces them ;  in  so  far  as  they  are  able, 
they  define  words  as  she  defines  them.  In 
due  course,  they  are  a  bit  fearful  of  any 
knowledge  obtained  otherwise  than  as  she 
teaches  them  to  obtain  it.  Is  there  one  of 
us  who  has  attempted  to  help  a  child  with 
"home  lessons'*  who  has  not  been  obliged 
to  reckon  with  this  fact  ?  Have  we  not 
worked  out  a  problem  in  "  bank  discount,*' 
for  instance,  for  a  perplexed  youthful  mathe- 
matician, only  to  be  told,  hesitatingly, "  Ye-es, 
you  have  got  the  right  answer,  but  that  is  n't 
the  way  my  teacher  does  bank  discount. 
Don*t  you  know  how  to  do  it  as  she  does  ?  ** 
Or,  with  a  young  Latin  "beginner"  in  the 
house,  have  we  not  tried  to  bring  order  out  of 
chaos  with  respect  to  the"Bellum  Gallicum" 
by  translating, "  All  Gaul  is  divided  into  three 
parts,**  to  be  at  once  interrupted  by, "  Our 
III 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

teacher  translates  that, '  Gaul  is,  as  a  whole, 
divided  into  three  parts/  "  If  we  would 
assist  the  children  of  our  immediate  circles  at 
all  with  their  "  home  lessons/*  we  must  do  it 
exactly  after  the  manner  and  method  ordained 
by  their  teachers. 

This  condition  of  things  ought  not  to  be 
displeasing  to  us,  for  the  reason  that,  in  the 
main,  we  have  ourselves  brought  it  to  pass. 
The  children,  during  their  first  days  at  school, 
are  loyally  ready  to  force  the  views  of  their 
fathers  and  their  mothers,  and  their  uncles 
and  aunts,  upon  their  teachers ;  and  their 
teachers  are  tactfully  ready  to  effect  a  com- 
promise with  them.  But,  before  very  long, 
our  reiterated,  "  Your  teacher  knows ;  do  as 
she  says,"  has  its  effect.  The  teacher  be- 
comes the  child's  touchstone  in  relation  to  a 
considerable  number  of  the  "  array  of  sub- 
jects "  taught  in  a  present-day  school.  School- 
teachers in  America  prepare  themselves  so 
carefully  for  their  duties,  train  themselves 
to  such  a  high  order  of  skill  in  their  perform- 
ance, it  is  but  just  that  those  of  us  who  are 
not  teachers  should  abdicate  in  their  favor. 

112 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

However,  since  we  are  all  very  apt  to  be 
in  entire  accord  with  the  children's  teachers 
in  all  really  vital  matters,  our  position  of  sec- 
ond place  in  the  minds  of  the  boys  and  girls 
with  regard  to  the  ways  of  doing  "bank 
discount "  or  translating  "  Gallia  est  omnes 
divisa  in  partes  tres^'  is  of  small  account. 
At  least,  we  have  a  fuller  knowledge  of  their 
own  relations  with  these  mathematical  and 
Latinic  things  than  our  grandparents  had 
of  our  parents*  lessons.  And  the  children's 
teachers  know  more  about  our  relations  to 
the  subjects  taught  than  the  teachers  of  our 
fathers  and  mothers  knew  respecting  the 
attitudes  of  our  grandfathers  and  grand- 
mothers toward  the  curriculum  of  that  earlier 
time.  For  the  children  of  to-day,  unlike 
the  children  of  a  former  time,  talk  at  home 
about  school  and  talk  at  school  about  home. 
Almost  unconsciously,  this  effects  an  increas- 
ingly cooperative  union  between  home  and 
school. 

"  We  are  learning  '  Paul  Revere's  Ride,' 
in  school,"  I  heard  a  small  girl  who  lives  in 
Boston  say  recently  to  her  mother. 

"3 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

"  Are  you,  darling  ?  '*  the  mother  replied. 
"  Then,  should  n't  you  like  to  go  some  Satur- 
day and  see  the  church  where  the  lanterns 
were  hung  ? " 

So  much  did  the  child  think  she  would 
like  to  go  that  her  mother  took  her  the  next 
Saturday. 

"  You  saw  the  very  steeple  at  which  Paul 
Revere  looked  that  night  for  the  lanterns!" 
I  said,  when,  somewhat  later,  I  happened  to 
be  again  at  that  child's  home. 

"  Twice,"  she  replied.  "  I  told  my  teacher 
that  mother  had  taken  me,  so  she  took  all 
of  us  in  my  room  at  school  on  the  next  Sat- 
urday." 

Perhaps  the  most  significant  influence  of 
the  American  home  upon  the  American 
school  is  to  be  found  in  the  regular  setting 
apart  of  an  hour  of  the  school-day  once,  or 
twice,  or  even  three  times  a  week,  as  a  story 
hour;  and  the  filling  of  that  hour  with  the 
stories,  read  or  told,  that  in  earlier  times  chil- 
dren never  so  much  as  heard  mentioned  at 
school  by  their  teachers.  It  is  indeed  a  pleas- 
ant thought  that  in  school-rooms  through- 
114 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

out  the  land  boys  and  girls  are  hearing  about 
the  Argonauts,  and  the  Knights  of  the  Round 
Table,  and  the  Crusaders ;  to  say  nothing  of 
such  famous  personages  in  the  story  world 
as  Cinderella,  and  the  Sleeping  Beauty,  and 
Hop-0*-My-Thumb.  The  home  story  hour 
is  no  less  dear  because  there  is  a  school  story 
hour  too. 

The  other  afternoon  I  stopped  in  during 
the  story  hour  to  visit  a  room  in  the  school 
of  my  neighborhood.  The  teacher  told  the 
story  of  Pandora  and  the  tale  of  Theseus  and 
the  Minotaur.  A  small  friend  of  mine  is  a 
member  of  the  "  grade  "  which  occupies  that 
room.  At  the  end  of  the  session  she  walked 
home  with  me. 

"Tell  me  a  story?"  she  asked,  when, 
sitting  cozily  by  the  fire,  we  were  having 
tea. 

"What  one  should  you  like  ?  "  I  inquired. 
"The  story  of  Clytie,  perhaps,  or — " 

"  I  'd  like  to  hear  the  one  about  Pan- 
dora—" 

"  But  you  have  just  heard  it  at  school !  " 
I  exclaimed. 

"5 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

"  I  know/'  she  said ;  "  but  I  *d  like  to  hear 
you  tell  it." 

When  I  had  told  it,  she  begged  me  to  tell 
another.  Again  I  suggested  various  tales  in 
my  repertory.  But  she  refused  them  all. 
"Tell  about  the  man,  and  the  dragon,  and 
the  ball  of  string,  and  the  lady  — "  she 
began. 

And  once  more  when  I  interposed,  re- 
minding her  that  she  had  just  heard  it,  she 
once  more  said,  "Yes ;  but  I  'd  like  to  hear  it 
again." 

Some  of  the  children  whom  I  have  in  mind 
as  I  write  go  to  private  schools  and  some  of 
them  go  to  public  schools.  It  has  not  seemed 
to  me  that  the  results  obtained  by  the  one 
type  of  school  are  discernibly  different  from 
those  produced  by  the  other.  In  the  private 
school  there  are  fewer  pupils  than  in  the 
public  school;  and  they  are  more  nearly  alike 
from  the  point  of  view  of  their  parents'  ma- 
terial wealth  than  are  the  pupils  in  a  public 
school.  They  are  also  "Americans,"  and  not 
"  foreigners,"  as  are  so  many  of  the  children 
in  city  public  schools,  and  even  in  the  pub- 
ii6 


•    •     •     • 


THEY  HAVE  SO   MANY  THINGS  I 


THE  CHILD  IN  SCHOOL 

He  schools  of  many  suburbs  and  villages. 
Possibly  owing  to  their  smaller  numbers, 
they  receive  more  individual  attention  than 
the  pupils  of  the  public  school;  but,  so  far  as 
my  rather  extensive  and  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  children  qualifies  me  to  judge, 
they  learn  the  same  lessons,  and  learn  them 
with  equal  thoroughness.  We  hear  a  great 
deal  about  the  differences  between  public 
and  private  schools,  and  certainly  there  are 
differences;  but  the  pupils  of  the  public  and 
the  private  schools  are  very  much  alike.  It 
is  considerably  easier  to  distinguish  a  public 
from  a  private  school  than  it  is  to  tell  a  pub- 
lic-school child  from  a  private-school  child. 
There  are  many  arraignments  of  our 
American  schools,  whether  public  or  priv- 
ate ;  and  there  are  many  persons  who  shake 
their  heads  over  our  American  school-chil- 
dren. "  The  schools  are  mere  drilling-places," 
we  hear,  "where  the  children  are  all  put 
through  the  same  steps."  And  the  children 
—  what  do  we  hear  said  of  them  ?  "  They 
do  not  work  at  their  lessons  as  children  of 
one,  two,  or  three  generations  ago  did,"  is 

117 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

the  cry;   "school  is  made  so  pleasant  for 
them!" 

Unquestionably  our  American  schools  and 
our  American  school-children  have  their 
faults.  We  must  try  to  amend  both.  Mean- 
while, shall  we  not  be  grateful  that  the 
"  steps"  through  which  the  children  are  put 
are  such  excellent  ones ;  and  shall  we  not 
rejoice  that  school  is  made  so  "  pleasant " 
for  the  boys  and  girls  that,  unlike  the  chil- 
dren of  one,  two,  or  three  generations  ago, 
they  like  to  go  to  school? 


V 

THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

One  day,  not  long  ago,  a  neighbor  of 
Colonel  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  of 
honored  memory,  was  talking  to  me  about 
him.  Among  the  score  of  charming  anec- 
dotes of  the  dear  Colonel  that  she  told  me, 
there  was  one,  the  most  delightful  of  all,  that 
related  to  the  time-worn  subject  of  the  child 
in  the  library.  "  As  a  family,  we  were  read- 
ers," she  said.  "The  importance  of  reading 
had  been  impressed  upon  our  minds  from  our 
earliest  youth.  All  of  us  liked  to  read,  ex- 
cepting one  sister,  younger  than  I.  She  cared 
little  for  it ;  and  she  seldom  did  it.  I  was  a 
mere  child,  but  so  earnestly  had  I  always  been 
told  that  children  who  did  not  read  would 
grow  up  ignorant  that  I  worried  greatly  over 
my  sister  who  would  not  read.  At  last  I  un- 
burdened my  troubled  mind  to  Colonel  Hig- 
ginson. *  She  does  n*t  like  to  read ;  she 
119 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

does  n't  read/  I  confided.  '  I  am  afraid  she 
will  grow  up  ignorant ;  and  then  she  will  be 
ashamed !  And  think  how  we  shall  feel  !  * 
The  Colonel  considered  my  words  in  silence 
for  a  time.  Then  he  said :  '  There  is  a  large 
and  finely  selected  library  in  your  house  ; 
don't  be  disturbed  regarding  your  sister,  my 
dear.  She  will  not  grow  up  ignorant.  You 
see,  she  is  exposed  to  books  !  She  is  certain 
to  get  something  of  what  is  in  them  ! '  " 

Colonel  Higginson*s  neighbor  went  on  to 
say  that  from  that  day  she  was  no  longer 
haunted  by  the  fear  that  her  sister,  because 
she  did  not  read,  would  grow  up  ignorant. 
Are  many  of  us  in  that  same  condition  of  feel- 
ing with  respect  to  the  children  of  our  ac- 
quaintance, even  after  we  have  provided  them 
with  as  excellent  a  library  as  had  that  other 
child  in  which  they  may  be  "exposed  to 
books  "  ?  On  the  contrary,  so  solicitous  are 
we  that,  having  furnished  to  the  best  of  our 
knowledge  the  best  books,  we  do  not  rest 
until  we  are  reasonably  sure  that  the  chil- 
dren are,  not  simply  getting  something  from 
them,  but  getting  it  at  the  right  times  and  in 

120 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

the  right  ways.  And  everything  and  every 
one  conspires  to  help  us.  Publishers  issue 
volumes  by  the  dozen  with  such  titles  as 
"  The  Children's  Reading  "  and  "  A  Guide 
to  Good  Reading  "  and  "  Golden  Books  for 
Children."  The  librarian  of  the  "children's 
room  "  in  many  a  library  sets  apart  a  cer- 
tain hour  of  each  week  or  each  month  for 
the  purpose  of  telling  the  children  stories 
from  the  books  that  we  are  all  agreed  the 
children  should  read,  hoping  by  this  means 
to  inspire  the  boys  and  girls  to  read  the  par- 
ticular books  for  themselves.  No  effort  is 
regarded  as  too  great  if,  through  it,  the  chil- 
dren seem  likely  to  acquire  the  habit  of  using 
books ;  using  them  for  work,  and  using  them 
for  recreation. 

Certainly  our  labors  in  this  direction  on 
behalf  of  the  children  are  amply  rewarded. 
Not  only  are  American  children  of  the  pre- 
sent time  fond  of  reading  —  most  children 
of  other  times  have  been  that ;  they  have  a 
quite  remarkable  skill  and  ease  in  the  use  of 
books. 

A  short  while  ago,  spending  a  spring  week- 

121 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

end  with  a  friend  who  lives  in  the  country,  I 
chanced  to  see  a  brilliant  scarlet  bird  which 
neither  my  hostess  nor  I  could  identify.  "  It 
was  a  redbird,  I  suppose/*  I  said,  in  men- 
tioning it  later  to  a  city  acquaintance. 

"  What  is  a  redbird  ?"  she  asked.  "  Is  it 
a  cardinal,  or  a  tanager,  or  something  still 
different  ? " 

"Idon^t  know,"  I  replied.  "Perhaps," 
I  added,  turning  to  her  little  girl  often  who 
was  in  the  room,  ^'you  know;  children  learn 
so  much  about  birds  in  their  '  nature  study.* " 

"  No,**  the  child  answered  ;  "  but,**  she 
supplemented  confidently,  "  I  can  find  out." 

Several  days  afterward  she  came  to  call. 
"  Do  you  remember  exactly  the  way  that  red 
bird  you  saw  in  the  country  looked  ?  *'  she 
inquired,  almost  as  soon  as  we  met. 

"Just red,  I  think,**  I  said. 

"  Not  with  black  wings  ?  **  she  suggested. 

"  I  hardly  think  so,**  I  answered. 

"  P'aps  it  had  a  few  white  feathers  in  its 
wings?**  she  hinted. 

"  I  believe  not,**  I  said. 

"  Then,**  she  observed,   with   an  air  of 

122 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

finality,  "  it  was  a  cardinal  grosbeak ;  and 
the  other  name  for  that  is  redbird ;  so  you 
saw  a  redbird.  The  scarlet  tanager  is  red, 
too,  but  it  has  black  wings,  and  it  is  n't  called 
a  redbird  ;  and  the  crossbill  is  red,  with  a  few 
wbiu  feathers,  and  //  is  n't  called  a  redbird 
either.  Only  the  cardinal  grosbeak  is.  That 
was  what  you  saw,"  she  repeated. 

"  And  who  told  you  all  this  ?  "  I  queried. 

"  Nobody,"  the  little  girl  made  reply.  "  I 
looked  it  up  in  the  library." 

She  was  only  ten.  "  How  did  you  look 
it  up  ?  "   I  found  myself  asking. 

"  First,"  she  explained,"  I  picked  out  the 
birds  on  the  bird  charts  that  were  red.  The 
charts  told  their  names.  Then  I  got  out  a 
bird  book,  and  looked  till  I  found  where  it 
told  about  those  birds." 

"  Do  you  look  up  many  things  in  the  li- 
brary ?  "  I  questioned. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  the  child  replied. 

"  And  do  you  always  find  them  ?  "  I  con- 
tinued. 

"  Not  always  by  myself,"  she  confessed. 
"Everything  isn't  as  easy  to  look  up  as 
123 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

birds.  But  when  I  can't,  there  is  always  the 
librarian,  and  she  helps ;  and  when  she  is 
helping,  *most  anything  gets  found  !  " 

The  public  library  of  my  small  friend's 
city,  not  being  the  library  I  habitually  used, 
was  only  slightly  familiar  to  me.  Not  long 
after  I  had  been  so  earnestly  assured  that 
the  scarlet  bird  I  had  seen  was  a  redbird,  I 
made  occasion  to  go  to  the  library  in  which 
the  information  had  been  gathered.  It  was 
such  a  public  library  as  may  be  seen  in  very 
nearly  every  small  city  in  the  United  States. 
Built  of  stone  ;  lighted  and  heated  according 
to  the  most  approved  modern  methods ; 
divided  into  "stack-rooms"  and  "reading- 
rooms"  and  "receiving-rooms"  —  it  was 
that  "typical  American  library"  of  which 
we  are,  as  we  should  be,  so  proud.  I  did  not 
ask  to  be  directed  to  the  "  children's  room  "  ; 
I  simply  followed  a  group  of  children  who 
had  come  into  the  building  with  me. 

The  "  children's  room,"  too,  was  "  typi- 
cal." It  was  a  large,  sunny  place,  furnished 
with  low  bookcases,  small  tables,  and  chairs. 
Around  two  walls,  above  the  shelves,  were 
124 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

pictures  of  famous  authors,  and  celebrated 
scenes  likely  to  be  known  to  children.  At 
one  end  of  the  room  the  bird  charts  of 
which  I  had  so  interestingly  heard  were 
posted,  together  with  flower  charts  and 
animal  charts,  of  which  I  had  not  been 
told.  At  the  other  end  was  the  desk  of 
the  librarian,  who  so  helped  young  investi- 
gators that,  when  she  helped,  anything  got 
found. 

I  seated  myself  at  the  little  table  nearest 
her  desk.  She  smiled,  but  she  said  nothing. 
Neither  did  I  say  anything.  The  time  of 
day  was  just  after  school;  the  librarian  was 
too  much  occupied  to  talk  to  a  stray  visitor. 
I  remained  for  fully  an  hour;  and  during 
that  hour  a  steady  stream  of  children  passed 
in  and  out  of  the  room.  Some  of  them  se- 
lected books,  and,  having  obtained  them, 
departed ;  others  stayed  to  read,  and  others 
walked  softly  about,  examining  the  pictures 
and  charts.  All  of  them,  whatever  their  va- 
rious reasons  for  coming  to  the  library,  be- 
gan or  ended  their  visits  in  conference  with 
the  librarian.  They  spoke  just  above  a  whis- 
125 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

per,  as  befitted  the  place,  but  I  was  near 
enough  to  hear  all  that  was  said. 

"  We  want  to  give  a  play  at  school  the 
last  day  before  Christmas  vacation,"  said  one 
small  girl;  "is  there  a  good  one  here?  " 

The  librarian  promptly  recommended  and 
put  into  the  child's  hands  a  little  volume  en- 
titled "  Fairy  Tales  a  Child  Can  Read  and 
Act." 

A  boy,  entering  rather  hurriedly,  asked, 
"  Could  I  have  a  book  that  tells  how  to  make 
a  wireless  set  —  and  have  it  quick,  so  I  can 
begin  to-day  before  dark?" 

It  was  not  a  moment  before  the  librarian 
found  for  him  a  book  called  "Wireless  Tel- 
egraphy for  Amateurs  and  Students." 

Another  boy,  less  on  pleasure  bent,  peti- 
tioned for  a  "  book  about  Abraham  Lincoln 
that  will  tell  things  to  put  in  a  composition 
on  him."  And  a  girl,  at  whose  school  no 
Christmas  play  was  apparently  to  be  given, 
asked  for  "  a  piece  of  poetry  to  say  at  school 
just  before  Christmas."  For  these  two,  as 
for  all  who  preceded  or  followed  them,  the 
librarian  had  help. 

126 


THE  STORY  HOUR  IN  THE  CHILDREN'S   ROOM 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

"  How  wonderful,  how  unique !  "  ex- 
claimed an  Italian  friend  to  whom  I  related 
the  experiences  of  that  afternoon  hour  in  the 
"  children's  room  "  in  the  library  of  that 
small  city. 

But  it  seems  to  me  that  the  wonderful 
thing  about  it  is  that  it  is  not  unique;  that 
in  almost  any  "  children's  room  "  in  almost 
any  public  library  in  America  practically  the 
same  condition  prevails.  Not  only  are  "chil- 
dren's rooms"  of  a  very  fine  order  to  be  found 
in  great  numbers ;  but  children's  librarians,  as 
sympathetic  and  as  capable  as  the  librarian  of 
my  small  friend's  library,  in  as  great  numbers, 
are  in  charge  of  those  rooms.  So  recognized 
a  profession  has  theirs  come  to  be  that,  con- 
nected with  one  of  the  most  prominent  li- 
braries in  the  country,  there  is  a  "  School  for 
Children's  Librarians." 

The  "  children's  librarians  "  do  not  stop  at 
assisting  them  in  choosing  books.  The  story 
hour  has  come  to  be  as  important  in  the 
"children's  rooms  "  as  it  is  now  in  the  school, 
as  it  has  always  been  in  the  home.  Telling 
stories  to  children  has  grown  to  be  an  art ; 
127 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

there  is  more  than  one  text-book  laying  down 
its  "principles  and  laws/*  Many  a  librarian 
is  also  an  accomplished  story-teller,  and  in  an 
increasing  number  of  libraries  there  is  a  story 
hour  in  the  "children's  rooms."  Beyond 
question,  we  in  America  have  taken  every 
care  that  our  public  libraries  shall  mean  some- 
thing more  to  the  boys  and  girls  than  places 
in  which  they  are  merely  "  exposed  to  books." 
American  children  read ;  it  is  doubtful 
whether  any  other  children  in  the  world  read 
so  much  or  so  intelligently.  In  our  public 
libraries  we  plan  with  such  completeness  for 
their  reading  that  they  can  scarcely  escape 
becoming  readers!  At  home  we  keep  con- 
stantly in  mind  the  great  importance  of  in- 
culcating in  them  a  love  of  books  and  a 
wontedness  in  their  use.  To  so  many  of  their 
questionings  we  reply  by  advising,  "  Get  a 
book  about  it  from  the  library."  So  many  of 
the  fundamental  lessons  of  life  we  first  bring 
to  their  attention  by  putting  into  their  hands 
books  treating  of  those  lessons  written  by 
experts  —  written,  moreover,  expressly  for 
parents  to  give  to  their  boys  and  girls  to  read. 
128 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

A  few  days  ago  I  received  a  letter  from  a 
mother  saying :  "  Do  you  know  of  a  book 
on  hygiene  that  I  can  give  to  my  children  to 
read  —  a  book  on  that  subject /<?r  children?" 

Within  reach  of  my  hand  I  had  such  a 
book,  entitled  "  The  Child's  Day,"  a  simply, 
but  scientifically,  written  little  volume,  telling 
children  what  to  do  from  the  hour  of  rising 
until  the  hour  of  retiring,  in  order  to  keep 
well  and  strong,  able  to  do  good  work  at 
school,  and  to  enjoy  as  good  play  after  school. 
It  was  a  book  that  a  child  not  only  could  read 
with  profit,  but  would  read  with  pleasure. 

At  about  the  same  time  a  father  said  to 
me:  "Is  there  any  book  written  for  children 
about  good  citizenship  —  a  sort  of  primer 
of  civics,  I  mean?  I  require  something  of 
that  kind  for  my  boy." 

A  book  to  meet  that  particular  need,  too, 
was  on  my  book-shelves.  "  Lessons  for  Jun- 
ior Citizens,"  it  is  called.  In  the  clearest,  and 
also  the  most  charming,  form  it  tells  the 
boys  and  girls  about  the  government,  na- 
tional and  local,  of  their  country,  and  teaches 
them  their  relation  to  that  government. 
129 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  there  is  practically 
no  subject  so  mature  that  it  is  not  now  the 
theme  of  a  book,  or  a  score  of  books,  written 
especially  for  children.  Every  one  of  the 
numerous  publishing  houses  in  the  United 
States  issues  yearly  as  many  good  volumes 
of  this  particular  type  as  are  submitted.  A 
century  ago  a  new  writer  was  most  likely  to 
win  the  interest  of  a  publisher  by  sending  him 
a  manuscript  subtitled, "A  Novel."  At  the 
present  time  a  beginner  can  more  quickly 
awaken  the  interest  of  a  publisher  by  sub- 
mitting a  manuscript  the  title  of  which  con- 
tains the  words,  "For  Children." 

"Authors'  editions"  of  books  we  have 
long  had  offered  us  by  publishers  ;  "  editions 
de  luxe,''  too ;  and  "  limited  editions  of  fifty 
copies,  each  copy  numbered."  These  are  all 
old  in  the  world  of  books.  What  is  new, 
indeed,  is  the  "  children's  edition."  We 
have  it  in  many  shapes,  from  "  Dickens  for 
Children"  to  "The  Children's  Longfellow." 
These  volumes  find  their  way  into  the  "chil- 
dren's rooms  "  of  all  our  public  libraries  ;  and, 
quite  as  surely,  they  help  to  fill  the  "chil- 
130 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

dren*s  bookcases"  in  the  private  libraries  to 
be  found  in  a  large  proportion  of  American 
homes.  For  no  public  library  can  take  the 
place  in  the  lives  of  the  children  of  a  private 
library  made  up  of  their  "very  own"  books. 
The  public  library  may,  however,  often  have 
a  predominant  share  in  determining  the 
selection  of  those  "very  own"  books.  The 
children  wish  to  possess  such  books  as  they 
have  read  in  the  "  children's  room." 

Sometimes  a  child  has  still  another  similar 
reason  for  wishing  to  own  a  certain  book. 
Only  the  other  day  I  had  a  letter  from  a  boy 
to  whom  I  had  sent  a  copy  of  "The  Story  of 
a  Bad  Boy."  "I  am  glad  to  have  it,"  he  said. 
"  The  library  has  it,  and  father  has  it.  I  like 
to  have  what  the  library  and  father  have." 

Parents  buy  books  for  their  children  in 
very  much  the  proportions  that  parents 
bought  them  before  the  land  was  dotted  with 
public  libraries.  Indeed,  they  buy  books  in 
larger  proportions,  for  the  reason  that  there 
are  so  many  more  books  to  be  bought ! 
The  problem  of  the  modern  father  or  mother 
is  not,  as  it  once  was,  to  discover  a  volume 

131 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

likely  to  interest  the  children;  but,  from 
among  the  countless  volumes  offered  for 
sale,  all  certain  to  interest  the  children,  to 
choose  one,  two,  or  three  that  seem  most 
excellent  where  all  are  so  good.  A  mother 
of  a  few  generations  ago  whose  small  boy- 
was  eager  to  read  tales  of  chivalry  simply 
gave  him  "  Le  Morte  D*Arthur  " ;  there  was 
no  "  children's  edition  "  of  it,  no  "  Boy's 
King  Arthur,"  no  "Tales  of  the  Round 
Table."  The  father  whose  little  girl  desired 
to  read  for  herself  the  stories  of  Greece  he 
had  told  her  put  into  her  hands  Bulfinch's 
"Age  of  Fable";  he  could  not,  as  can 
fathers  to-day,  give  her  Kingsley's  rendering, 
or  Hawthorne's,  or  Miss  Josephine  Pres- 
ton Peabody's.  Like  the  father  of  Aurora 
Leigh,— 

**  He  wrapt  his  little  daughter  in  his  large 
Man's  doublet,  careless  did  it  fit  or  no.** 

At  the  present  time  we  do  not  often  see 

a  child  wrapped  in  a  large  man's  doublet  of  a 

book ;  even  more  seldom  do  we  see  a  father 

careless  if  it  fit  or  no.  What  we  plainly  be- 

132 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

hold  is  that  doublet,  cut  down,  and  most 
painstakingly  fitted  to  the  child's  little 
mind. 

Unquestionably  the  children  lose  some- 
thing by  this.  The  great  books  of  the  world 
do  not  lend  themselves  well  to  making  over. 
"  Tales  from  Shakespeare  "  are  apt  to  leave 
out  Shakespeare's  genius,  and  "Stories  from 
Homer"  are  not  Homer.  In  cutting  the 
doublet  to  fit,  the  most  precious  part  of  the 
fabric  is  in  danger  of  being  sacrificed. 

But  whatever  the  children  lose  when  they 
are  small,  they  find  again  when  they  come  to 
a  larger  growth.  Most  significant  of  all,  when 
they  find  it,  they  recognize  it.  A  little  girl  who 
is  a  friend  of  mine  had  read  Lambs'"  Tales." 
The  book  had  been  given  to  her  when  she 
was  eight  years  old.  She  is  nine  now.  One 
day,  not  long  ago,  she  was  lingering  before  my 
bookcases,  taking  out  and  glancing  through 
various  volumes.  Suddenly  she  came  run- 
ning to  me,  a  copy  of  "As  You  Like  It"  in 
her  hand.  "  This  story  is  in  one  of  my  books ! " 
she  cried. 

"  Yes,"  I  said ;  "  your  book  was  written 

133 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

from  this  book,  and  some  of  those  other  little 
red  books  there  with  it  in  the  bookcase." 

The  child  went  back  to  the  bookcase.  She 
took  down  all  the  other  volumes  of  Shake- 
speare, and,  sitting  on  the  rug  with  them,  she 
spent  an  utterly  absorbed  hour  in  turning 
over  their  leaves.  Finally  she  scrambled  to 
her  feet  and  set  the  books  back  in  their 
places.  "  I  Ve  found  which  stories  in  these 
books  are  in  my  book,  too,"  she  remarked. 
"  Mine  are  easier  to  read,"  she  added  ;  "but 
yours  have  lovely  talk  in  them!  " 

Had  she  not  read  Lambs'  "  Tales  "  at  eight 
I  am  notcertain  she  would  have  ventured  into 
the  wide  realms  of  Shakespeare  at  nine,  and 
tarried  there  long  enough  to  discover  that  in 
those  realms  there  is  "  lovely  talk." 

Occasionally,  to  be  sure,  the  children  in- 
sist upon  books  being  easy  to  read,  and  refuse 
to  find  "  lovely  talk"  in  them  if  they  are  not. 
It  was  only  a  short  time  ago  that  I  read  to 
a  little  boy  Browning*s  "  Pied  Piper  of 
Hamelin."  When  I  had  finished  there  was 
a  silence.  "  Do  you  like  it? "  I  inquired. 

"  Ye-es,"  replied  my  small  friend;  "it's  a 

134 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

nice  story,  but  it 's  nicer  in  my  book  than  in 
yours.  I  '11  bring  it  next  time  I  come,  so  you 
can  read  it." 

He  did.  The  story  was  told  in  prose.  It 
began,  "There  was  once  a  town,  named 
Hamelin,  and  there  were  so  many  rats  in  it 
that  the  people  did  not  know  what  to  do." 
Certainly  this  is  "  easier  to  read  "  than  the 
forty-two  lines  which  the  poem  uses  to  make 
an  identical  statement  regarding  the  town 
named  Hamelin.  My  little  friend  is  only  six. 
I  hope  that  by  the  time  he  is  twelve  he  will 
think  the  poem  is  as  "  nice  "  as,  if  not "  nicer" 
than,  the  story  in  his  book.  At  least  he  may 
be  impelled  by  the  memory  of  his  pleasure 
in  his  book  to  turn  to  my  book  and  compare 
the  two  versions  of  the  tale. 

The  children  of  to-day,  like  the  children 
of  former  days,  read  because  they  find  in 
books  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of; 
and,  in  common  with  the  children  of  all 
times,  they  must  needs  make  dreams.  Like 
the  boys  and  girls  of  most  eras,  they  desire 
to  make  also  other,  more  temporal,  things. 
To  aid  them  in   this  there  are  books  in 

135 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

quantities  and  of  qualities  not  even  imag- 
ined by  the  children  of  a  few  generations 
ago.  The  book  the  title  of  which  begins 
with  the  words  "  How  to  Make  "  is  perhaps 
the  most  distinctive  product  of  the  present- 
day  publishing  house.  No  other  type  of 
book  can  so  effectively  win  to  a  love  for  read- 
ing a  child  who  seems  indifferent  to  books; 
who,  as  a  boy  friend  of  mine  used  to  say, 
"  would  rather  hammer  in  nails  than  read." 
The  "  How  to  Make  '*  books  tell  such  a 
boy  how  to  hammer  in  nails  to  some  pur- 
pose. I  happened  to  see  recently  a  volume 
called  "  Boys'  Make-at-Home  Things." 
With  much  curiosity  I  turned  its  pages, — 
pages  illustrated  with  pictures  of  the  make- 
at-home  things  of  the  title,  —  glancing  at 
directions  for  constructing  a  weather-vane,  a 
tent,  a  sled,  and  a  multitude  of  smaller  arti- 
cles. I  thought  of  my  boy  friend.  "  Do  you 
think  he  would  care  to  have  the  book  ? "  I 
inquired  of  his  mother  over  the  telephone. 
"  Well,  I  wisb  he  would  care  to  have  any 
book ! "  she  replied.  "  If  you  want  to  try 
this  one  — "  She  left  the  sentence  unfin- 
136 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

ished,  unless  a  sigh  may  be  regarded  as  a 
conclusion. 

I  did  try  the  book.  "This  will  tell  you 
how  to  have  fun  with  your  tools,"  I  wrote, 
when  I  sent  it  to  the  boy. 

Except  for  a  laconic  note  of  thanks,  I 
heard  nothing  from  my  young  friend  about 
the  book.  One  day  last  week  I  chanced  to 
see  his  mother.  "What  do  you  think  I  am 
doing  this  afternoon  ?  "  she  said.  "  I  am  get- 
ting a  book  for  my  son,  at  his  own  request ! 
He  is  engrossed  in  that  book  you  sent  him. 
He  is  making  some  of  the  things  described 
in  it.  But  he  wants  to  make  something  not 
mentioned  in  it,  and  he  actually  asked  me  to 
see  if  I  could  find  a  book  that  told  how  !  " 

"  So  he  likes  books  better  now? "  I  com- 
mented. 

"  Well  —  I  asked  him  if  he  did,"  said  the 
boy's  mother;  "and  he  said  he  did  n't  like 
'  booky  *  books  any  better,  but  he  liked  this 
kind,  and  always  would  have,  if  he  'd  known 
about  them ! " 

Whether  my  boy  friend  will  learn  early  to 
love  "  booky  "  books  is  a  bit  doubtful  per- 

^37 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

haps ;  certainly,  however,  he  has  found  a 
companion  in  one  kind  of  book.  He  has 
made  the  discovery  quickly,  too  ;  for  he  has 
had  "Boys'  Make-at-Home  Things"  less 
than  a  month. 

It  was  an  easy  matter  for  that  boy's  mo- 
ther to  get  for  her  son  the  particular  book  he 
desired.  She  lives  in  a  city ;  at  least  three 
large  public  libraries  are  open  to  her.  As  for 
book-shops,  there  are  more  within  her  reach 
than  she  could  possibly  visit  in  the  course 
of  a  week,  much  less  in  an  afternoon. 

The  mothers  who  live  in  the  country  can- 
not so  conveniently  secure  the  books  their 
boys  and  girls  may  wish  or  need.  I  know 
one  woman,  the  mother  of  two  boys,  living 
in  the  country,  who  has  to  exercise  consider- 
able ingenuity  to  provide  her  sons  with  books 
of  the  "  How  to  Make  "  kind.  There  is  no 
public  library  within  available  distance  of  the 
farmhouse  which  is  her  home,  and  she  and 
her  husband  cannot  afford  to  buy  many 
books  for  their  children.  The  boys,  more- 
over, like  so  great  a  variety  of  books  that,  in 
order  to  please  them,  it  is  not  necessary  to 

138 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

select  a  book  that  is  not  "  booky."  Their 
parents  are  lovers  of  great  literature.  "  I  can- 
not bring  myself  to  buy  a  book  about  how 
to  make  an  aeroplane,  for  instance,"  their 
mother  said  to  me  one  day,  "when  there  are 
so  many  wonderful  books  they  have  not  read, 
and  would  enjoy  reading  !  Since  I  must  limit 
my  purchase  of  books,  I  really  think  I  ought 
to  choose  only  the  real  books  for  the  boys ; 
and  yet  they  want  to  make  things  with  their 
hands,  like  other  boys,  and  there  is  no  way 
to  teach  them  how  except  through  books. 
My  husband  has  no  time  for  it,  and  there  is 
no  one  else  to  show  them." 

The  next  summer  I  went  to  spend  a  few 
days  with  my  friend  in  the  country.  The 
morning  after  my  arrival  her  boys  proposed 
to  take  me  "  over  the  place."  At  the  lower 
edge  of  the  garden,  to  which  we  presently 
came,  there  was  a  little  brook.  Across  it  was 
a  bridge.  It  was  plainly  to  be  seen  that  this 
bridge  was  the  work  of  the  boys.  "How 
very  nice  it  is  ! "  I  remarked. 

"We  made  it,"  the  older  of  the  boys  in- 
stantly replied. 

139 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

"  Who  showed  you  how  ? "  I  queried, 
wondering,  as  I  spoke,  if  my  friend  had, 
after  all,  changed  her  mind  with  respect 
to  the  selection  of  books  for  her  children, 
and  chosen  one  "How  to  Make**  vol- 
ume. 

"  It  told  how  in  a  book,"  the  younger  boy 
said;  "  a  Latin  book  father  studied  out  of 
when  he  was  a  boy.  There  was  a  picture  of 
the  bridge ;  and  on  the  pages  in  the  back 
of  the  book  the  way  to  make  it  was  all  writ- 
ten out  in  English  —  father  had  done  it  when 
he  was  in  school.  It  was  a  long  time  before 
we  could  quite  see  how  to  doit;  but  mother 
helped,  and  the  picture  showed  how,  and 
father  thought  we  could  do  it  if  we  kept  at 
it.  And  it  is  really  a  good  bridge — you  can 
walk  across  on  it.'* 

When  the  boys  and  I  returned  to  the 
house  my  friend  greeted  me  with  a  merry 
smile.  As  soon  as  we  were  alone  she  ex- 
claimed, "  I  have  so  wanted  to  write  to  you 
about  our  bridge,  patterned  on  Caesar's  !  But 
the  boys  are  so  proud  of  it,  they  like  to 
'  surprise '  people  with  it  — ■  not  because  it  is 
140 


THE  children's  EDITION 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

like  a  bridge  Caesar  made,  but  because  it  is 
a  bridge  they  have  made  themselves  ! " 

Another  friend  of  mine,  the  mother  of  a 
little  girl,  has  had  a  different  problem,  cen- 
tring around  the  necessity  of  books  for  chil- 
dren, to  solve.  She,  too,  lives  in  the  country, 
and  her  little  girl  is  a  pupil  at  the  neighbor- 
ing district  school.  During  a  visit  in  the  city 
home  of  a  cousin  the  small  girl  had  been  a 
spectator  at  the  city  child's  "school  play," 
which  happened  to  consist  of  scenes  from  "A 
Midsummer-Night's  Dream."  When  she 
returned  home,  she  wished  to  have  such  an 
entertainment  in  her  school.  "  Dearest,"  her 
mother  said,  "we  have  no  books  of  plays 
children  could  act." 

"Couldn't  we  do  the  one  they  did  at 
Cousin  Rose's  school  ?"  was  the  next  query, 
"  Papa  says  we  have  that^ 

"  I  am  afraid  not,"  her  mother  demurred. 
"  Ask  your  teacher." 

The  child  approached  her  teacher  on  the 

subject.  "No,"  the  teacher  said  decisively. 

" '  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream '  is  too  long 

and  too  hard.  Read  it,  and  you'll  see.  But," 

141 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

she  sagely  added,  "  if  you  can  find  anything 
that  is  suitable,  and  can  persuade  the  other 
children  to  act  in  it,  I  will  help  you  all  I  can." 

That  evening,  at  home,  the  little  girl 
read  "A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream." 
"Mamma,"  she  suddenly  cried,  as  she  neared 
the  end,  "  my  teacher  says  this  is  too  long 
and  too  hard  for  us  children  to  do.  But  we 
could  do  the  play  that  the  people  in  it  do  — 
don*t  you  think?  It  is  very  short,  and  all  the 
children  will  like  it  because  it  is  about  poor 
Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  that  we  have  all  read 
about  in  school.  It  is  n't  just  the  same  as  the 
way  it  was  in  the  story  we  read ;  but  it  is  about 
them  —  and  the  wall,  and  the  lion,  and  every- 
thing !  Don't  you  think  we  could  do  it  ? 
They  did  the  fairy  part  when  I  saw  it  at 
Cousin  Rose's  school,  and  not  this  at  all.  But 
could  n't  we  ?  " 

"I  did  not  like  to  discourage  her,"  my 
friend  said  when  she  related  the  tale  to  me. 
"  All  the  other  children  were  willing  and  eager 
to  do  it,  so  her  teacher  could  n't  refuse,  after 
what  she  had  said,  to  help  them.  I  helped 
with  the  rehearsals,  too,  and  I  doubt  if  the 
142 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

teacher  or  I  ever  laughed  so  much  in  all  our 
lives  as  we  did  at  that  time  —  when  there 
were  no  children  about !  The  children  were  so 
sweet  and  serious  over  their  play !  They  acted 
it  as  they  would  have  acted  a  play  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe  written  especially 
for  them.  T'i?<?)' were  n't  funny.  No;  they  were 
perfectly  lovely.  What  was  so  irresistibly 
comic,  of  course,  was  the  difference  between 
their  performance  and  one's  remembrance 
ofregular  performances  of  it — to  say  nothing 
of  one's  thoughts  as  to  what  Shakespeare 
would  have  said  about  it.  How  those  children 
will  laugh  when  they  are  grown  up !  They 
will  have  something  to  laugh  at  that  will  last 
them  a  lifetime.  But  poor  Shakespeare  !  " 

I  did  not  echo  these  final  words  of  my 
friend.  For  does  not  Shakespeare  rather  par- 
ticularly like  to  bless  us  with  the  laugh  that 
lasts  a  lifetime,  even  if —  perhaps  especially 
if — it  be  at  our  own  expense? 

Books  are  such  integral  parts  of  the  lives 
of  present-day  children,  especially  in  Amer- 
ica. Their  elders  appreciate,  as  possibly  the 
grown-ups  of  former  times  did  not  quite  so 

143 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

fully  appreciate,  the  importance  of  books  in 
the  education  of  the  boys  and  girls.  It  may 
even  be  that  we  over-emphasize  it  a  bit.  We 
send  the  children  to  the  book-shelves  for  help 
in  work  and  for  assistance  in  play.  In  effect, 
we  say  to  them,  "  Read,  that  you  may  be 
able  to  mark,  learn,  and  inwardly  digest."  It 
is  only  natural  that  the  boys  and  girls  should 
read  for  a  hundred  reasons,  instead  of  for 
the  one  reason  of  an  older  day  —  the  pur- 
suit of  happiness  in  the  mere  reading  itself. 
"  How  can  you  sit  idly  reading  a  book  when 
there  are  so  many  useful  things  you  might  be 
doing  ? "  was  the  question  often  put  to  the 
children  of  yesterday  by  their  elders.  To-day 
we  feel  that  the  children  can  hardly  do  any- 
thing likely  to  prove  more  useful  than  read- 
ing a  book.  Is  not  this  because  we  have 
taught  them,  not  only  to  read,  but  to  read 
for  a  diversity  of  reasons? 

American  children  are  so  familiarly  at 
home  in  the  world  of  books,  it  should  not 
surprise  us  to  find  them  occasionally  taking 
rather  a  practical,  everyday  view  of  some  of 
the  things  read.  A  little  girl  friend  of  mine 
144 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

chanced  to  begin  her  reading  of  Shakespeare 
during  a  winter  when  her  grown-up  relatives 
were  spending  a  large  portion  of  their  leisure 
going  to  see  stage  representations  of  Shake- 
speare's plays.  She  therefore  heard  consid- 
erable conversation  about  the  plays,  and 
about  the  persons  acting  the  chief  roles  in 
them.  It  happened  that  "As  You  Like  It" 
was  one  of  the  comedies  being  acted.  The 
little  girl  was  invited  to  go  to  see  it.  "  Who 
is  going  to  be  Orlando  ?  "  she  inquired;  she 
had  listened  to  so  much  talk  about  who 
"was,"  or  was  "going  to  be,"  the  various 
persons  in  the  several  dramas ! 

"  But,"  she  objected,  when  she  was  in- 
formed, "  I  think  I  Ve  heard  you  say  he  is 
not  very  tall.  Orlando  was  such  a  tall  man  !  " 

"  Was  he  ? "  I  ventured,  coming  in  at  that 
moment.  "  I  don't  remember  that  about 
him.  Who  told  you  he  was  tall  ?  " 

"  Why,  it  is  in  the  book  !  "  she  exclaimed. 

Every  one  present  besought  her  to  men- 
tion where. 

"  Don't  you  remember  ? "  she  said  incred- 
ulously. "  He  says  Rosalind  is  just  as  high 

H5 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD. 

as  his  heart ;  that  would  n't  be  quite  up 
to  his  shoulder.  And  she  says  she  Is  more 
than  common  tall !  So  he  must  have  been 
^specially  tall.  Don't  you  remember  ?  "  she 
asked  again,  looking  perplexedly  at  our  blank 
faces. 

There  are  so  many  bonds  of  understand- 
ing between  American  children  of  the  pre- 
sent time  and  their  grown-up  relatives  and 
friends.  Is  not  one  of  the  best  of  these  that 
which  has  come  out  of  our  national  impulse 
toward  giving  the  boys  and  girls  the  books 
we  love, "  cut  small " ;  and  showing  them  how 
to  read  those  books  as  we  read  the  larger 
books  from  which  they  are  made  ?  "  What 
kinds  of  books  do  American  children  read? " 
foreigners  inquire.  We  are  able  to  reply, 
"  The  same  kinds  that  grown-up  Americans 
read."  "  And  why  do  they  read  them  ? " 
may  be  the  next  question.  Again  we  can 
answer,  "  For  much  the  same  reasons  that 
the  grown-ups  read  them."  "How  do  they 
use  the  libraries  ?  "  might  be  the  next  query. 
Still  we  could  say,  "  As  grown  people  use 
them."  And  if  yet  another  query,  "  Why  ? " 

146 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

be  put,  we  might  reply,  "  Because,  unlike 
any  other  children  in  the  world,  American 
children  are  almost  as  completely  '  exposed 
to  books '  as  are  their  elders." 


VI 

THE   CHILD   IN    CHURCH 

Within  the  past  few  months,  I  have  had 
the  privilege  of  looking  over  the  answers 
sent  by  men  and  women  —  most  of  them 
fathers  and  mothers  —  living  in  many  sec- 
tions of  the  United  States,  in  response  to 
an  examination  paper  containing  among 
other  questions  this  one  :  "  Should  church- 
going  on  the  part  of  children  be  compul- 
sory or  voluntary?"  In  almost  every  case 
the  answer  was,  "  It  should  be  voluntary." 
In  practically  all  instances  the  reason  given 
was,  "Worship,  like  love,  is  at  its  best  only 
when  it  is  a  free-will  offering." 

It  was  not  a  surprise  to  read  again  and 
again,  in  longer  or  in  shorter  form,  such  an 
answer,  based  upon  such  a  reason.  The  re- 
ligious liberty  of  American  children  of  the 
present  day  is  perhaps  the  most  salient  fact 
of  their  lives.  Without  doubt,  the  giving  to 
148 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

them  of  this  liberty  is  the  most  remarkable 
fact  in  the  lives  of  their  elders.  No  grown 
people  were  ever  at  any  time  willingly  al- 
lowed to  exercise  such  freedom  in  matters 
pertaining  to  religion  as  are  the  children  of 
our  nation  at  the  present  time.  Not  only  is 
churchgoing  not  compulsory ;  religion  itself 
is  voluntary. 

A  short  while  ago  a  little  girl  friend  of 
mine  was  showing  me  her  birthday  gifts. 
Among  them  was  a  Bible.  It  was  a  beauti- 
ful book,  bound  in  soft  crimson  leather,  the 
child's  name  stamped  on  it  in  gold. 

"And  who  gave  you  this  ?"  I  asked. 

"Father,"  the  little  girl  replied.  "See 
what  he  has  written  in  it,"  she  added,  when 
the  shining  letters  on  the  cover  had  been 
duly  appreciated. 

I  turned  to  the  fly-leaf  and  read  this : 

"  To  my  daughter  on  her  eighth  birthday  from 
her  father. 

«*  *  I  give  you  the  end  of  a  golden  string: 
Only  wind  it  into  a  ball, — 
It  will  lead  you  in  at  Heaven's  gate 
Built  in  Jerusalem's  wall.' " 

149 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

"  Is  n't  it  lovely  ?  "  questioned  the  child, 
who  had  stood  by,  waiting,  while  I  read. 

"  Yes,"  I  agreed,  "  very  lovely,  and  very 
new." 

Her  mother,  who  was  listening,  smiled 
slowly.  "My  father  gave  me  a  Bible  on 
my  birthday,  when  I  was  seven"  —  she 
began. 

"  O  mother,"  interrupted  her  little  girl, 
"  what  did  grandfather  write  in  it  ?  " 

"  Go  and  look,"  her  mother  said.  "  You 
will  find  it  on  the  table  by  my  bed." 

The  child  eagerly  ran  out  of  the  room. 
In  a  few  moments  she  returned,  the  Bible 
of  her  mother's  childhood  in  her  hands.  It 
also  was  a  beautiful  book;  bound,  too,  in 
crimson  leather,  and  with  the  name  of  its 
owner  stamped  on  it  in  gold.  And  on  the 
fly-leaf  was  written, — 

"  To  my  daughter,  on  her  seventh  birth- 
day, from  her  father." 

Beneath  this,  however,  was  inscribed  no 
modern  poetry,  but 

"  Remember  now  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy 
youth,  while  the  evil  days  come  not,  nor  the  years 
150 


*•.'  >••%?.. 


^^^■^^H 

^F^  *^^^^^^3B 

^m    ■  i 

r      1 

J^^M^HW^^H 

IN  THE  INFANT  CLASS 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

draw  nigh,  when  thou  shalt  say,  I  have  no  pleasure 
in  them." 

The  little  girl  read  it  aloud.  "It  sounds  as 
though  you  would  n*t  be  happy  if  you  didnt 
remember,  mother,"  she  said,  dubiously. 

"  Well,  darling,"  her  mother  replied, "  and 
so  you  would  n't." 

The  child  took  her  own  Bible  and  read 
aloud  the  verse  her  father  had  written.  "  But, 
mother,  this  sounds  as  though  you  would  he 
happy  if  you  did  remember." 

"  And  so  you  will,  dear,"  her  mother  made 
reply.  "  It  is  the  same  thing,"  she  added. 

"  Is  it  ?  "  the  little  girl  exclaimed  in  some 
surprise.  "It  does  n't  seem  quite  the  same." 

The  child  did  not  press  the  question.  She 
left  us,  to  return  her  mother's  Bible  to  its 
wonted  place.  When  she  came  back,  she  re- 
sumed the  exhibiting  of  her  birthday  gifts 
where  it  had  been  interrupted.  But  after  she 
had  gone  out  to  play  I  said  to  her  mother, 
"Are  they  quife  the  same  —  the  text  in  your 
Bible  and  the  lines  in  hers  ? " 

"It  is  rather  a  long  way  from  Solomon  to 
William  Blake,  is  n't  it  ?  "  she  exclaimed. 

151 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

*^  But  I  really  don't  see  much  difference.  The 
same  thing  is  saidj  only  in  the  one  case  it  is 
a  command  and  In  the  other  it  is  an  impel- 
ling suggestion." 

"  Is  n't  that  rather  a  great  deal  of  differ- 
ence ? "  I  ventured. 

"  No,  I  think  not,"  she  said,  meditatively. 
"Of  course,  I  admit,"  she  supplemented, 
"that  the  idea  of  an  impelling  suggestion  ap- 
peals to  the  imagination  more  than  the  idea 
of  a  command.  But  that 's  the  only  differ- 
ence." 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  "  only  "  difference 
is  at  the  very  foundation  of  the  religious 
training  of  the  children  of  the  present  day  in 
our  country.  We  do  our  best  to  awaken 
their  imaginations,  to  put  to  them  suggestions 
that  will  impel,  to  say  to  them  the  "  same 
thing  "  that  was  said  to  the  children  of  more 
austere  times  about  remembering  their  Cre- 
ator ;  but  so  to  say  it  that  they  feel,  not  that 
they  will  be  unhappy  if  they  do  not  remem- 
ber, but  that  they  will  be  happy  if  they  do. 
It  is  the  love  of  God  rather  than  the  fear  of 
God  that  we  would  have  them  know. 
152 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

Is  it  not,  indeed,  just  because  we  do  so 
earnestly  desire  that  they  should  learn  this 
that  we  leave  them  so  free  with  regard  to 
what  we  call  their  spiritual  life?  "Read  a 
chapter  in  your  Bible  every  day,  darling,"  I 
recently  heard  a  mother  say  to  her  little  girl 
on  the  eve  of  her  first  visit  away  from  home 
without  her  parents.  "  In  Auntie's  house 
they  don't  have  family  prayers,  as  we  do,  so 
you  won't  hear  a  chapter  read  every  day  as 
you  do  at  home." 

"  What  chapters  shall  I  read,  mamma  ?  " 
the  child  asked. 

"  Any  you  choose,  dear,"  the  mother  re- 
plied. 

"  And  when  in  the  day  ? "  was  the  next 
question.  "  Morning  or  night  ?  '* 

"  Just  as  you  like,  dearest,"  the  mother 
answered. 

But  there  is  a  religious  liberty  beyond 
this.  To  no  one  in  America  is  it  so  readily, 
so  sympathetically,  given  as  to  a  child.  We 
are  all  familiar  with  the  difficulties  which 
attend  a  grown  person,  even  in  America, 
whose  convictions  necessitate  a  change  of 

153 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

religious  denomination.  Such  a  situation 
almost  invariably  means  distress  to  the  fam- 
ily, and  to  the  relinquished  church  of  the 
person  the  form  of  whose  faith  has  altered. 
In  few  other  matters  is  so  small  a  measure 
of  liberty  understandingly  granted  a  grown 
person,  even  in  America.  But  when  a  child 
would  turn  from  one  form  of  belief  to 
another,  how  differently  the  circumstance  is 
regarded  I 

One  Sunday,  not  long  ago,  visiting  an 
Episcopal  Sunday-school,  I  saw  in  one  of 
the  primary  classes  a  little  girl  whose  pa- 
rents, as  I  was  aware,  were  members  of  the 
Baptist  Church. 

"  Is  she  a  guest  ?  "  I  asked  her  teacher. 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  replied ;  "  she  is  a  regular 
member  of  the  Sunday-school ;  she  comes 
every  Sunday.  She  was  christened  at  Easter ; 
I  am  her  godmother." 

"  But  don't  her  father  and  mother  belong 
to  the  Baptist  Church  ? "  I  questioned. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  child's  Sunday-school 
teacher.  "  But  she  came  to  church  one  Sun- 
day with  some  new  playmates  of  hers,  whose 

154 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

parents  are  Episcopalians,  to  see  a  baby 
christened.  Then  her  Httle  friends  told  her 
how  they  had  all  been  christened,  as  babies ; 
and  when  she  found  that  she  had  n't  been, 
she  wanted  to  be.  So  her  father  and  mother 
let  her,  and  she  comes  to  Sunday-school 
here." 

"  Where  does  she  go  to  church  ? "  I  found 
myself  inquiring. 

"  To  the  Baptist  Church,  with  her  father 
and  mother,"  was  the  reply.  "  She  asked 
them  to  let  her  come  to  Sunday-school  here; 
but  it  never  occurred  to  her  to  think  of  going 
to  church  excepting  with  them." 

Somewhat  later  I  chanced  to  meet  the 
child's  mother.  It  was  not  long  before  she 
spoke  to  me  concerning  her  little  girl's 
membership  in  the  Episcopal  Sunday-school. 
"  What  were  her  father  and  I  to  do  ?  "  the 
mother  said.  "  We  did  n't  feel  justified  in 
standing  in  her  way.  She  wanted  to  be  chris- 
tened ;  it  seemed  to  mean  something  real  to 
her — "  she  broke  off.  "What  were  we  to 
do?"  she  repeated.  "It  would  be  a  dread- 
ful thing  to  check  a  child's  aspiration  toward 
155 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

God !  Of  course  she  is  only  a  little  girl,  and 
she  wanted  to  be  like  the  others.  Her  father 
and  I  thought  of  that,  naturally.  But  —  " 
Again  she  stopped.  "  One  can  never  tell," 
she  went  on,  "  what  is  in  the  mind  of  a 
child,  nor  what  may  be  happening  to  its 
spirit.  Samuel  was  a  very  little  child  when 
God  spoke  to  him,"  she  concluded,  simply. 

Quite  as  far  as  that  mother,  has  another 
mother  of  my  acquaintance  let  her  little  girl 
go  along  the  way  of  religious  freedom.  One 
day  I  went  with  her  and  the  child  to  an  Ital- 
ian jewelry  shop.  Among  the  things  there 
was  a  rosary  of  coral  and  silver.  The  little 
girl,  attracted  by  its  glitter  and  color,  seized 
it  and  slipped  it  over  her  head.  "Look, 
mother,"  she  said, "  see  this  lovely  necklace ! " 

Her  mother  gently  took  it  from  her.  "  It 
is  n't  a  necklace,"  she  explained ;  "  it  is  called 
a  rosary.  You  must  n*t  play  with  it;  because 
it  is  something  some  people  use  to  say  their 
prayers  with." 

The  child's  mother  is  of  Scotch  birth  and 
New  England  upbringing.  The  little  girl  has 
been  accustomed  to  a  form  of  religion  and  to 
156 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

an  attitude  toward  the  things  of  religion  that 
are  beautiful,  but  austerely  beautiful.  She  is 
an  imaginative  child ;  and  she  caught  eagerly 
at  the  poetical  element  thus,  for  the  first 
time,  associated  with  prayer.  "  Tell  me  how ! " 
she  begged. 

When  next  I  was  in  the  little  girl's  bed- 
room, I  saw  the  coral  and  silver  rosary  hang- 
ing on  one  of  the  head-posts  of  her  bed. 
"Yes,  my  dear,"  her  mother  explained  to  me, 
"  I  got  the  rosary  for  her.  She  wanted  it  — 
'  to  say  my  prayers  with,*  she  said ;  so  I  got  it. 
After  all,  the  important  thing  is  that  she  says 
her  prayers.'* 

Among  my  treasures  I  have  a  rosary, 
brought  to  me  from  the  Holy  Land.  I  have 
had  it  for  a  long  time,  and  it  has  hung  on 
the  frame  of  a  photograph  of  Bellini*s  lovely 
Madonna.  This  little  girl  has  always  liked 
that  picture,  and  she  has  often  spoken  to  me 
about  it.  But  she  had  never  mentioned  the 
rosary,  which  not  only  is  made  of  dark  wood, 
but  is  darker  still  with  its  centuries  of  age. 
One  day  after  the  rosary  of  pink  coral  and 
bright  silver  had  been  given  her  she  came  to 

157 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

see  me.  Passing  through  the  room  where  the 
Madonna  is,  she  stopped  to  look  at  it.  At 
once  she  exclaimed,  ^^  Tou  have  a  rosary  !  '* 

"Yes,"  I  said;  "it  came  from  the  Holy 
Land/'  I  took  it  down,  and  put  it  into  her 
hands.  "  It  has  been  in  Bethlehem,*'  I  went 
on,  "  and  in  Jerusalem.  It  is  very  old ;  it 
belonged  to  a  saint — like  St.  Francis,  who 
was  such  friends  with  the  birds,  you  remem- 
ber." 

"I  suppose  the  saint  used  it  to  say  his 
prayers  with  ? "  the  little  girl  observed. 
Then,  the  question  evidently  occurring  to  her 
for  the  first  time,  she  asked,  eagerly,  "  What 
prayers  did  he  say,  do  you  think?  " 

When  I  had  in  some  part  replied,  I  said, 
this  question  indeed  occurring  to  me  for  the 
first  time,  "  What  prayers  do  you  say  ? " 

"  Oh,"  she  replied,  instantly,  "  I  say, '  Our 
Father,'  and '  Now  I  lay  me,'  and '  God  bless ' 
all  the  different  ones  at  home,  and  in  other 
places,  that  I  know.  I  say  all  that;  and  it 
takes  all  the  beads.  So  I  say,  *  The  Lord  is 
my  Shepherd'  last,  for  the  cross."  She  was 
silent  for  a  moment,  but  I  said  nothing, 
158 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

and  she  went  on.  "  I  know  '  In  my  Father's 
house  are  many  mansions/  and  'Though 
I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  an- 
gels.* I  might  say  them  sometimes  instead, 
mightn't  I  ?'* 

I  told  this  to  one  of  my  friends  who  is  a 
devout  Roman  Catholic.  "  It  shows,"  she 
said, "  what  the  rosary  can  do  for  religion ! " 

But  it  seemed  to  me  that  it  showed  rather 
what  religion  could  do  for  the  rosary.  Had 
the  child's  mother,  Scotch  by  birth.  New  Eng- 
land by  breeding,  not  been  a  truly  religious 
woman  she  would  not  have  bade  her  little 
girl  handle  with  reverence  the  emblem  of  a 
faith  so  unlike  her  own  ;  she  would  not  have 
said,  "  Don't  play  with  it."  As  for  the  small 
girl,  had  she  never  learned  to  "  say  prayers," 
she  would  not  have  desired  the  rosary  to  say 
them  "  with."  And  it  was  not  the  silver 
cross  hanging  on  her  rosary  that  influenced 
her  to  "  say  last,"  for  it,  the  best  psalm  and 
"spiritual  song"  she  knew;  it  was  the  un- 
derstanding she  had  been  given  by  careful 
teaching  of  the  meaning  of  that  symbol. 
Above  all,  had  the  little  girl,  after  being 

159 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

taught  to  pray,  not  been  left  free  to  pray  as 
her  childish  heart  inclined,  that  rosary  would 
scarcely  have  found  a  place  on  the  head-post 
of  her  small  bed. 

It  may  be  for  the  very  reason  that  the 
children  are  not  compelled  to  think  and  to 
feel  in  the  things  of  religion  as  their  parents 
do  that  fathers  and  mothers  in  America  so 
frankly  tell  their  boys  and  girls  exactly  what 
they  do  think  and  just  how  they  do  feel. 
The  children  may  not  ever  understand  the 
religious  experiences  through  which  their 
parents  are  passing,  but  they  often  know 
what  those  experiences  are.  Moreover,  they 
sometimes  partake  of  them. 

Among  my  child  friends  there  is  a  little 
girl,  an  only  child,  whose  father  died  not  a 
great  while  ago.  The  little  girl  had  always 
had  a  share  in  the  joys  of  her  parents.  It 
surprised  no  one  who  knew  the  family  that 
the  mother  in  her  grief  turned  to  the  child 
for  comfort ;  and  that  together  they  bore  their 
great  bereavement.  Indeed,  so  completely 
did  this  occur  that  the  little  girl  for  a  time 
hardly  saw  any  one  excepting  her  mother  and 
i6o 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

her  governess.  After  a  suitable  interval,  an 
old  friend  of  the  family  approached  the 
mother  on  the  subject.  "  Your  little  girl  is 
only  eight  years  old/*  she  said,  gently. 
"  Ought  n*t  she  perhaps  to  go  to  see  her 
playmates,  and  have  them  come  to  see  her, 
again,  now  ? " 

The  mother  saw  the  wisdom  of  the  sug- 
gestion. The  child  continued  to  spend  much 
of  her  time  with  her  mother,  but  she  gradu- 
ally resumed  her  former  childish  occupa- 
tions. She  had  always  been  a  gregarious  lit- 
tle girl ;  once  more  her  nursery  was  a  merry, 
even  an  hilarious,  place. 

One  Saturday  a  short  time  ago  she  was 
among  the  six  small  guests  invited  to  the 
birthday  luncheon  of  another  little  girl  friend 
of  mine.  Along  with  several  other  grown- 
ups I  had  been  invited  to  come  and  lend  a 
hand  at  this  festivity.  I  arrived  just  as  the 
children  were  going  into  the  dining-room, 
where  the  table  set  forth  for  their  especial 
use,  and  bright  with  the  light  of  the  seven 
candles  on  the  cake,  safely  placed  in  the 
centre,  awaited  them.  They  climbed  into 
i6i 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

their  chairs,  and  then  all  seven  of  them 
paused.  "  Mother,"  said  the  little  girl  of  the 
house,  "  who  shall  say  grace  ? " 

"/can!" 

"Let  »/^/" 

"  I  always  do  at  home  !  " 

These  and  other  exclamations  were  made 
before  the  mother  could  reply.  When  she 
was  able  to  get  a  hearing,  she  suggested,  "  I 
think  each  one  of  you  might,  since  you  all 
can  and  would  like  to." 

"You  say  It  first,"  said  one  of  the  child- 
ren to  her  little  hostess, "  because  it  is  your 
birthday." 

At  a  nod  from  her  mother,  the  little  girl 
said  the  Selkirk  grace  :  — 

**  Some  hae  meat  and  canna  eat. 

And  some  wad  eat  that  want  it ; 
But  we  hae  meat  and  we  can  eat. 
And  sae  the  Lord  be  thanldt.'* 

Then  another  small  girl  said  her  grace, 
which  was  Herrick*s  :  — 

*•  Here  a  little  child  I  stand. 
Heaving  up  my  either  hand  ; 

162 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

Cold  as  paddocks  though  they  be. 
Here  I  lift  them  up  to  Thee, 
For  a  benison  to  fall 
On  our  meat  and  on  us  all 
Amen.'* 

The  next  little  girl  said  Stevenson's :  — 

"It  is  very  nice  to  think 
The  world  is  full  of  meat  and  drink. 
And  little  children  saying  grace 
In  every  Christian  kind  of  place.'* 

The  succeeding  little  guests  said  the  dear 
and  familiar  "blessing"  of  so  many  child- 
ren :  — 

«*For  what  we  are  about  to  receive,  O  Lord,  make  us 
truly  thankful.** 

My  little  friend  into  whose  life  so  griev- 
ous a  sorrow  had  come  was  the  last  to  say 
her  grace.  It  was  the  poem  of  Miss  Jose- 
phine Preston  Peabody  entitled  "  Before 
Meat :  — 

**  Hunger  of  the  world. 
When  we  ask  a  grace 
Be  remembered  here  with  us. 
By  the  vacant  place. 

**  Thirst  with  nought  to  drink. 
Sorrow  more  than  mine, 

163 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

May  God  some  day  make  you  laugh. 
With  water  turned  to  wine  ! " 

There  was  a  silence  when  she  finished, 
among  the  children  as  well  as  among  the 
grown  persons  present.  "  I  don't  quite  under- 
stand what  your  grace  means/*  the  little  girl 
of  the  house  said  at  last  to  her  small  guest. 

"  It  means  that  I  still  have  my  mamma, 
and  she  still  has  me,"  replied  the  child. 
"Some  people  have  n*t  anybody.  It  means 
that;  and  it  means  we  ask  God  to  let  them 
have  Him.  My  mamma  told  me,  when  she 
taught  it  to  me  to  say  instead  of  the  grace  I 
used  to  say  when  we  had  my  papa.** 

The  little  girl  explained  with  the  simple 
seriousness  and  sweetness  so  characteristic 
of  the  answers  children  make  to  questions 
asked  them  regarding  things  in  any  degree 
mystical.  The  other  small  girls  listened  as 
sweetly  and  as  seriously.  Then,  with  one  ac- 
cord, they  returned  to  the  gay  delights  of  the 
occasion.  They  were  a  laughing,  prattling, 
eagerly  happy  little  party,  and  of  them  all 
not  one  was  more  blithe  than  the  little  girl 
who  had  said  grace  last. 
164 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

The  child's  intimate  companionship  with 
her  mother  in  the  sorrow  which  was  her  sor- 
row too  had  not  taken  from  her  the  abihty 
for  participation  in  childish  happiness,  also 
hers  by  right.  Was  not  this  because  the  com- 
panionship was  of  so  deep  a  nature?  The 
mother,  in  letting  her  little  girl  share  her 
grief,  let  her  share  too  the  knowledge  of  the 
source  to  which  she  looked  for  consolation. 
Above  all,  she  not  only  told  her  of  heavier 
sorrows ;  she  told  her  how  those  greater 
griefs  might  be  lightened.  Children  in  Amer- 
ica enter  into  so  many  of  the  things  of  their 
parents*  lives,  is  it  not  good  that  they  are 
given  their  parts  even  in  those  spiritual  things 
that  are  most  near  and  sacred  ? 

I  have  among  my  friends  a  little  boy  whose 
father  finds  God  most  surely  in  the  operation 
of  natural  law.  Indeed,  he  has  often  both 
shocked  and  distressed  certain  of  his  neigh- 
bors by  declaring  it  to  be  his  belief  that  no- 
where else  could  God  be  found.  "  His  poor 
wife  I  "  they  were  wont  to  exclaim ;  "  what 
must  she  think  of  such  opinions  ? "  And 
later,  when  the  little  boy  was  born,  "  That 
165 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

unfortunate  babyl"  they  sighed;  "how  will 
his  mother  teach  him  religion  when  his  father 
has  these  strange  ideas  ? "  That  the  wife 
seemed  untroubled  by  the  views  of  her  hus- 
band, and  that  the  baby,  as  he  grew  into 
little-boyhood,  appeared  very  similar  to  other 
children  as  far  as  prayers  and  Bible  stories  and 
even  attendance  at  church  were  concerned, 
did  not  reassure  the  disturbed  neighbors. 
For  the  child's  father  continued  to  ex- 
press —  if  possible,  more  decidedly  —  his  dis- 
quieting convictions.  "  Evidently,  though," 
said  one  neighbor,  "  he  does  n*t  put  such 
thoughts  into  the  head  of  his  child." 

Apparently  he  did  not.  I  knew  the  small 
boy  rather  intimately,  and  I  was  aware  that 
his  father,  after  the  custom  of  most  Ameri- 
can parents,  took  the  child  into  his  confi- 
dence with  regard  to  many  other  matters. 
The  little  boy  was  well  acquainted  with  his  fa- 
ther's political  belief,for  example.  I  had  had 
early  evidence  of  this.  But  it  was  not  until 
a  much  later  time,  and  then  indirectly,  that 
I  saw  that  the  little  boy  was  possessed  too  of 
a  knowledge  of  his  father's  religious  faith. 
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DO  YOU  LIKE   MY  NEW  HYMN 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

I  was  ill  in  a  hospital  a  year  or  two  ago, 
and  the  little  boy  came  with  his  mother  to 
see  me.  A  clergyman  happened  to  call  at  the 
same  time.  It  was  Sunday,  and  the  clergy- 
man suggested  to  my  small  friend  that  he 
say  a  psalm  or  a  hymn  for  me. 

"  My  new  one,  that  daddy  has  just  taught 
me  ? "  the  child  inquired,  turning  to  his 
mother. 

She  smiled  at  him.  "Yes,  dearest,"  she 
said  gently. 

The  little  boy  came  and  stood  beside  my 
bed,  and,  in  a  voice  that  betokened  a  love 
and  understanding  of  every  line,  repeated 
Mrs.  Browning's  lovely  poem  :  — 

**  They  say  that  God  lives  very  high! 
But  if  you  look  above  the  pines. 
You  cannot  see  our  God.   And  why  ? 

**  And  if  you  dig  down  in  the  mines. 
You  never  sec  Him  in  the  gold. 
Though  from  Him  all  that  *s  glory  shines. 

**  God  is  so  good.  He  wears  a  fold 

Of  heaven  and  earth  across  His  face  — 
.Like  secrets  kept,  for  love,  untold. 

167 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

**  But  still  I  feel  that  His  embrace 

Slides  down,  by  thrills,  through  all  things  made. 
Through  sight  and  sound  of  every  place  : 

"  As  if  my  tender  mother  laid 

On  my  shut  Hds,  her  kisses*  pressure. 
Half- waking  me  at  night  ;  and  said, 

'  Who  kissed  you  through  the  dark,  dear  guesser  ?  *  " 

Beyond  question  the  clergyman  had  ex- 
pected a  less  unusual  selection  than  this  ;  but 
he  smiled  very  kindly  at  the  little  boy  as  he 
said  the  beautiful  words.  At  the  conclusion 
he  merely  said,  "  You  have  a  good  father, 
my  boy." 

"  Do  you  like  my  new  hymn  ? "  the  child 
asked  me. 

"Yes,"  I  replied.  "Did  your  father  tell  you 
what  it  means?"   I  added,  suddenly  curious. 

"No,"  said  my  small  friend;  "I  didn't 
ask  him.  "You  see,"  he  supplemented, "it 
tells  itself  what  It  means  !  " 

The  things  of  religion  so  often  to  the 
children  tell  themselves  what  they  mean  ! 
Only  the  other  day  I  heard  a  little  girl  re- 
counting to  her  young  uncle,  learned  in  the 
higher  criticism,  the  story  of  the  Creation. 
i68 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

"  Just  only  six  days  it  took  God  to  make 
everything^'  she  said ;  "  think  of  that !" 

"  My  dear  child,"  remonstrated  her  uncle, 
"  that  is  n*t  the  point  at  all  —  the  amount  of 
time  it  required !  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  took 
thousands  of  years  to  make  the  world.  The 
word  '  day  *  in  that  connection  means  a  cer- 
tain period  of  time,  not  twenty-four  hours." 

"  Oh  ! "  cried  the  little  girl,  in  disappoint- 
ment ;  "  that  takes  the  wonderfulness  out  of 
it!" 

"  Not  at  all,"  protested  her  young  uncle. 
"And,  supposing  it  did,  can  you  not  see  that 
the  world  could  not  have  been  made  in  six 
oi  our  days?" 

"  Why,"  said  the  child,  in  surprise,  "  I 
should  think  it  could  have  been ! " 

"  For  what  reason? "  her  uncle  asked,  in 
equal  amazement. 

"  Because  God  was  doing  it ! "  the  child 
exclaimed. 

Her  uncle  did  not  at  once  reply.  When 
he  did,  it  was  to  say,  "  You  are  right  about 
that^  my  dear." 

Sometimes  it  happens  that  a  child  finds  in 
169 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

our  careful  explanation  of  the  meaning  of  a 
religious  belief  or  practice  a  different  or  a 
further  significance  than  we  have  indicated. 
I  once  had  an  especially  striking  experience 
of  this  kind. 

I  was  visiting  a  family  in  which  there  were 
several  children,  cared  for  by  a  nurse  of  the 
old-fashioned,  old-world  type.  She  was  a 
woman  well  beyond  middle  age,  and  of  a 
frank  and  simple  piety.  There  was  hardly 
a  circumstance  of  daily  life  for  which  she 
was  not  ready  with  an  accustomed  ejacula- 
tory  prayer  or  thanksgiving.  One  day  I 
chanced  to  speak  to  her  of  a  mutual  friend, 
long  dead.  "  God  rest  her  soul !  "  said  the 
old  nurse,  in  a  low  tone. 

"  Why  did  she  say  that  ? "  the  little  four- 
year-old  girl  of  the  house  asked  me.  "  I 
never  heard  her  say  that  before ! " 

"  It  is  a  prayer  that  some  persons  always 
say  when  speaking  of  any  one  who  is  dead  ; 
especially  any  one  they  knew  and  loved,"  I 
explained. 

Later  in  the  day,  turning  over  a  portfolio 
of  photographs  with  the  little  girl,  I  took 
170 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

up  a  picture  of  a  fine,  faithful-eyed  dog. 
"Whose  dog  is  this?"  I  asked.  "What  a 
good  one  he  is!  ** 

"  He  was  ours,"  replied  the  child,  "and 
he  was  very  good ;  we  liked  him.  But  he  is 
dead  now —  "  She  paused  as  if  struck  by  a 
sudden  remembrance.  Then,  "  God  rest  his  [ 
soul !  **  she  sighed,  softly. 

Most  of  the  answers  I  read  in  response 
to  the  question,  "  Should  churchgoing  on 
the  part  of  children  be  compulsory  or  vol- 
untary ? "  did  not  end  with  the  brief  state- 
ment that  it  should  be  voluntary,  and  the 
reason  why  ;  a  considerable  number  of  them 
went  on  to  say :  "  The  children  should  of 
course  be  inspired  and  encouraged  to  go. 
They  should  be  taught  that  it  is  a  privilege. 
Their  Sunday-school  teachers  and  their  min- 
ister, as  well  as  their  parents,  can  help  to 
make  them  wish  to  go." 

Certainly  their  Sunday-school  teachers 
and  ministers  can,  and  do.  The  answers  I 
have  quoted  took  for  granted  the  attendance 
of  children  at  Sunday-school.  Not  one  of 
them  suggested  that  this  was  a  matter  ad- 
171 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

mitting  of  free  choice  on  the  part  of  the 
children.  "  But  it  is  n't/'  declared  an  experi- 
enced Sunday-school  teacher  who  is  a  friend 
of  mine  when  I  said  this  to  her.  "  Going  to 
Sunday-school  is  n't  worship  ;  it  is  learning 
whom  to  worship  and  how.  Naturally,  child- 
ren go,  just  as  they  go  to  week-day  school, 
whether  they  like  to  or  not;  I  must  grant," 
she  added  by  way  of  amendment,  "  that  they 
usually  do  like  to  go  !  " 

Our  Sunday-schools  have  become  more 
and  more  like  our  week-day  schools.  The 
boys  and  girls  are  taught  in  them  whom  to 
worship  and  how,  but  they  are  taught  very 
much  after  the  manner  that,  in  the  week-day 
schools,  they  are  instructed  concerning  secu- 
lar things.  That  custom,  belonging  to  a 
time  not  so  far  in  the  past  but  that  many  of 
us  remember  it,  of  consigning  the  "  infant 
class  "  of  the  Sunday-school  to  any  amiable 
young  girl  in  the  parish  who  could  promise 
to  be  reasonably  regular  in  meeting  it  does 
not  obtain  at  the  present  day.  Sunday-school 
teachers  are  trained,  and  trained  with  increas- 
ing care  and  thoroughness,  for  their  task. 
172 


CHILDREN  GO  TO  CHURCH 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

Readiness  to  teach  is  no  longer  a  sufficient 
credential.  The  amiable  young  girl  must 
now  not  only  be  willing  to  teach,  she  must 
also  be  willing  to  learn  how  to  teach.  In  the 
earlier  time  practically  any  well-disposed 
young  man  of  the  congregation  who  would 
consent  to  take  charge  of  a  class  of  boys  was 
eagerly  allotted  that  class  without  further 
parley.  This,  too,  is  not  now  the  case.  The 
young  man,  before  beginning  to  teach  the 
boys,  is  obliged  to  prepare  himself  somewhat 
specifically  for  such  work.  In  my  own  parish 
the  boys*  classes  of  the  Sunday-school  are 
taught  by  young  men  who  are  students  in 
the  Theological  School  of  which  my  parish 
church  is  the  chapel.  In  an  adjacent  parish 
the  "infant  class  "  is  in  charge  of  an  accom- 
plished kindergartner.  Surely  such  persons 
are  well  qualified  to  help  to  inspire  and  to 
encourage  the  children  to  regard  churchgoing 
as  a  privilege,  and  to  make  them  wish  to  go  ! 
And  the  minister  !  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  the  minister  helps  more  than  any  one 
else,  except  the  father  and  mother,  to  give 
the  children  this  inspiration,  this  encourage- 

173 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

ment.  Children  go  to  church  now,  when 
churchgoing  is  voluntary,  quite  as  much  as 
they  went  when  it  was  compulsory.  They 
learn  very  early  to  wish  to  go ;  they  see  with 
small  difficulty  that  it  is  a  privilege.  Their 
Sunday-school  teachers  might  help  them, 
even  their  parents  might  help  them,  but,  un- 
less the  minister  helped  them,  would  this  be 
so  ? 

There  are  so  many  ways  in  which  the 
minister  does  his  part  in  this  matter  of  the 
child's  relation  to  the  church,  and  to  those 
things  for  which  the  church  stands.  They 
are  happily  familiar  to  us  through  our  child 
friends  :  the  "  children's  service  "  at  Christ- 
mas and  at  Easter;  the  "talks  to  children" 
on  certain  Sundays  of  the  year.  These  are 
some  of  them.  And  there  are  other,  more 
individual,  more  intimate  ways. 

The  other  day  a  little  girl  who  is  a  friend 
of  mine  asked  me  to  make  out  a  list  of  books 
likely  to  be  found  in  the  "children's  room" 
of  the  near-by  public  library  that  I  thought 
she  would  enjoy  reading.  On  the  list  I  put 
"The  Little  Lame  Prince,"  the  charming 

^74 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

story  by  Dinah  Mulock.  Having  completed 
the  list,  I  read  it  aloud  to  the  little  girl. 
When  I  reached  Miss  Mulock*s  book,  she 
interrupted  me. 

"  'The  Little  Lame  Prince,'  did  you  say? 
Is  that  in  the  library  ?  I  thought  it  was  in 
the  Bible." 

"The  Bible!"  I  exclaimed. 

"  Yes,*'  the  child  said,  in  some  surprise ; 
"don't  you  remember?  He  was  Jonathan's 
little  boy  —  Jonathan,  that  was  David's 
friend —  David,  that  killed  the  giant,  you 
know." 

I  at  once  investigated.  The  little  girl  was 
quite  correct.  "  Who  told  you  about  him  ? " 
I  inquired. 

"Our  minister,"  she  replied.  "He  read 
it  to  me  and  some  of  the  other  children." 

This,  too,  a  bit  later,  I  investigated.  I 
found  that  the  minister  had  not  read  the 
story  as  it  is  written  in  the  Bible,  but  a 
version  of  it  written  by  himself  especially 
for  this  purpose  and  entitled  "  The  Little 
Lame  Prince." 

At  church,  as  elsewhere,  the  children  of 

175 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

our  nation  are  quick  to  observe,  and  to  make 
their  own,  opportunities  for  doing  as  the 
grown-ups  do.  When  occasion  arises,  they 
slip  with  cheerful  and  confiding  ease  into  the 
places  of  their  elders. 

One  Sunday,  last  summer,  I  chanced  to 
attend  a  church  in  a  little  seaside  village. 
When  the  moment  arrived  for  taking  up  the 
collection,  no  one  went  forward  to  attend  to 
that  duty.  I  was  told  afterward  that  the  man 
who  always  did  it  was  most  unprecedentedly 
absent.  There  were  a  number  of  other  men 
in  the  rather  large  congregation,  but  none 
of  them  stirred  as  the  clergyman  stood  wait- 
ing after  having  read  several  offertory  sen- 
tences. I  understood  afterward  that  they 
"  felt  bashful,'*  not  being  used  to  taking  up 
the  collection.  The  clergyman  hesitated  for 
a  moment,  and  then  read  another  offertory 
sentence.  As  he  finished,  a  little  boy  not 
more  than  nine  years  old  stepped  out  of  a 
back  pew,  where  he  was  sitting  with  his 
mother,  and,  going  up  to  the  clergyman,  held 
out  his  hand  for  the  plate.  The  clergyman 
gravely  gave  it  to  him,  and  the  child,  with- 
176 


THE  CHILD  IN  CHURCH 

out  the  slightest  sign  of  shyness,  went  about 
the  church  collecting  the  offerings  of  the  con- 
gregation. This  being  done,  he,  with  equal  un- 
self-consciousness,  gave  the  plate  again  to 
the  clergyman  and  returned  to  his  seat  beside 
his  mother. 

"  Did  you  tell  him  to  do  it  ?  "  I  inquired  of 
the  mother,  later. 

"  Oh,  no,'*  she  answered  ;  "  he  asked  me 
if  he  might.  He  said  he  knew  how,  he  saw 
it  done  every  Sunday,  and  he  was  sure  the 
minister  would  let  him." 

American  children  of  the  present  day  are 
surer  than  the  children  of  any  other  nation 
have  ever  been  that  their  fathers  and  their 
mothers  and  their  ministers  will  allow  them 
liberty  to  do  in  church,  as  well  as  with  respect 
to  going  to  church,  such  things  as  they  know 
how  to  do,  and  eagerly  wish  to  do.  In  our 
national  love  and  reverence  for  childhood  we 
willingly  give  the  children  the  great  gift  that 
we  give  reluctantly,  or  not  at  all,  to  grown 
people  —  the  liberty  to  worship  God  as  they 
choose. 


CONCLUSION 

We  are  a  child-loving  nation ;  and  our 
love  for  the  children  is,  for  the  most  part, 
of  the  kind  which  Dr.  Henry  van  Dyke  de- 
scribes as  "  true  love,  the  love  that  desires 
to  bestow  and  to  bless."  The  best  things 
that  we  can  obtain,  we  bestow  upon  the 
children  ;  with  the  goodliest  blessings  within 
our  power,  we  bless  them.  This  we  do  for 
them.  And  they,  —  is  there  not  something 
that  they  do  for  us  ?  It  seems  to  me  that 
there  is ;  and  that  it  is  something  incal- 
culably greater  than  anything  we  do,  or  could 
possibly  do,  for  them.  More  than  any  other 
force  in  our  national  life,  the  children  help 
us  to  work  together  toward  a  common  end. 
A  child  can  unite  us  into  a  mutually  trust- 
ful, mutually  cordial,  mutually  active  group 
when  no  one  else  conceivably  could. 

A  few  years  ago,  I  was  witness  to  a  most 
striking  example  of  this.  I  went  to  a  "ladies* 
178 


CONCLUSION 

day**  meeting  of  a  large  and  important 
men's  club  that  has  for  its  object  the  study 
and  the  improvement  of  municipal  condi- 
tions. The  city  of  the  club  has  a  flourishing 
liquor  trade.  The  club  not  infrequently 
gives  over  its  meetings  to  discussions  of  the 
"  liquor  problem  "  ;  —  discussions  which,  I 
have  been  told,  had,  as  a  rule,  resolved  them- 
selves into  mere  argumentations  as  to  license 
and  no -license,  resulting  in  nothing.  By 
some  accident  this  "  ladies'  day  "  meeting 
had  for  its  chief  speaker  a  man  who  is  an  ar- 
dent believer  in  and  supporter  of  no-license. 
For  an  hour  he  spoke  on  this  subject,  and 
spoke  exceedingly  well.  When  he  had  fin- 
ished, there  ensued  that  random  play  of  ques- 
tion and  answer  that  usually  follows  the 
presiding  officer's,  "We  are  now  open  to  dis- 
cussion." The  chief  speaker  had  devoted  the 
best  efforts  of  his  mature  life  to  bringing  about 
no-license  in  his  home  city;  the  subject  was 
to  him  something  more  than  a  topic  for  a  dis- 
cussion that  should  lead  to  no  practical  work 
in  the  direction  of  solving  the  "liquor  pro- 
blem "  in  other  cities.  He  tried  to  make  that 
179 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

club  meeting  something  more  vital  than  an 
exchange  of  views  on  license  and  no-license. 
With  the  utmost  earnestness,  he  attempted 
to  arouse  a  living  interest  in  the  "  problem," 
and,  of  course,  to  make  converts  to  his  own 
belief  as  to  the  most  effective  solution  of  it. 

Finally,  some  one  said,  "  Is  n't  any  liquor 
sold  in  your  city  ?  Your  law  keeps  it  from 
being  sold  publicly,  but  privately,  —  how 
about  that  ? " 

"  I  cannot  say,"  the  chief  speaker  replied. 
"  The  law  may  occasionally  be  broken,  —  I 
suppose  it  is.  But,"  he  added,  "  I  can  tell 
you  this,  —  we  have  no  drunkards  on  our 
streets.  I  have  a  boy,  —  he  is  ten  years  old, 
and  he  has  never  seen  a  drunken  man  in 
his  life.  How  about  the  boys  of  the  people 
of  this  city,  of  this  audience  ?  " 

The  persons  in  that  audience  looked  at 
the  chief  speaker  ;  they  looked  at  each  other. 
There  followed  such  a  serious,  earnest,  frank 
discussion  of  the  "  liquor  problem  "  as  had 
never  before  been  held  either  in  that  club, 
or,  indeed,  in  any  assembly  in  that  city. 
Since  that  day,  that  club  has  not  only  held 
i8o 


CONCLUSION 

debates  on  the  "liquor  problem"  of  its 
city ;  it  has  tried  to  bring  about  no-license. 
The  chief  speaker  of  that  meeting  was  far 
from  being  the  first  person  who  had  ad- 
dressed the  organization  on  that  subject; 
neither  was  he  the  first  to  mention  its  rela- 
tion to  childhood  and  youth  ;  but  he  was  the 
very  first  to  bring  his  own  child,  and  to 
bring  the  children  of  each  and  every  member 
of  the  association  who  had  a  child  into  his 
argument.  With  the  help  of  the  children,  he 
prevailed. 

One  of  my  friends  who  is  a  member  of 
that  club  said  to  me  recently,  "  It  was  the 
sincerity  of  the  speaker  of  that  'ladies*  day' 
meeting  that  won  the  audience.  I  really  must 
protest  against  your  thinking  it  was  his 
chance  reference  to  his  boy  ! " 

"  But,"  I  reminded  him,  "  it  was  not  un- 
til he  made  that  '  chance  reference  '  to  his 
boy  that  any  one  was  in  the  least  moved. 
How  do  you  explain  that?" 

"  Oh,"  said  my  friend,  "  we  were  not  sure 
until  then  that  he  was  in  dead  earnest —  " 

"  And  then  you  were  ?  "  I  queried. 
i8i 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

"  Why,  yes,"  my  friend  replied.  "  A  man 
does  n't  make  use  of  his  child  to  give  weight 
to  what  he  is  advocating  unless  he  really  does 
believe  it  is  just  as  good  as  he  is  arguing 
that  it  is." 

"  So,"  I  persisted,  "  it  was^  after  all,  his 
*  chance  reference'  to  his  boy — " 

"  If  you  mean  that  nothing  practical  would 
have  come  of  his  speech,  otherwise,  —  yes, 
it  was  !  "  my  friend  allowed  himself  to  admit. 

Another  friend  who  happened  to  be  pre- 
sent came  into  the  conversation  at  this  point. 
"  Suppose  he  had  had  no  child ! "  she  sug- 
gested. "  Any  number  of  perfectly  sincere 
persons,  who  really  believe  that  what  they 
are  advocating  is  just  as  good  as  they  argue 
it  is,  have  no  children,"  she  went  on  whim- 
sically; "what  about  them?  Haven't  they 
any  chance  of  winning  their  audiences  when 
they  speak  on  no-license,  —  or  what  not?" 

Those  of  us  who  are  in  the  habit  of  at- 
tending "welfare  "  meetings  of  one  kind  or 
another,  from  the  occasional  "  hearings " 
before  various  committees  of  the  legislature, 
to  the  periodic  gatherings  of  the  National 
182 


CONCLUSION 

Education  Association,  and  the  National 
Conference  of  Charities  and  Correction, 
know  well  that,  when  advocating  solutions  of 
social  problems  as  grave  as  and  even  graver 
than  the  "  liquor  problem,"  the  most  potent 
plea  employed  by  those  speakers  who  are  not 
fathers  or  mothers  begins  with  the  words, 
"  You,  who  have  children."  My  friend  who 
had  said  that  a  man  did  not  make  use  of  his 
child  to  give  weight  to  his  arguments  unless 
he  had  a  genuine  belief  in  that  for  which  he 
was  pleading  might  have  gone  further;  he 
might  have  added  that  neither  do  men  and 
women  make  such  a  use  of  other  people's 
children  excepting  they  be  as  completely  sin- 
cere,—  provided  that  those  men  and  women 
love  children.  And  we  are  a  nation  of  child- 
lovers. 

It  is  because  we  love  the  children  that 
they  do  for  us  so  great  a  good  thing.  It  is 
for  the  reason  that  we  know  them  and  that 
they  know  us  that  we  love  them.  We  know 
them  so  intimately  ;  and  they  know  us  so  in- 
timately; and  we  and  they  are  such  familiar 
friends  !  The  grown  people  of  other  nations 

183 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

have  sometimes,  to  quote  the  old  phrase, 
"  entered  into  the  lives  "  of  the  children  of 
the  land  ;  we  in  America  have  gone  further; 
—  we  have  permitted  the  children  of  our 
nation  to  enter  into  our  lives.  Indeed,  we 
have  invited  them ;  and,  once  in,  we  have 
not  deterred  them  from  straying  about  as 
they  would.  The  presence  of  the  children  in 
our  lives,  —  so  closely  near,  so  intimately 
dear  !  —  unites  us  in  grave  and  serious  con- 
cerns,—  unites  us  to  great  and  significant 
endeavors  ;  and  unites  us  even  in  smaller 
and  lighter  matters,  —  to  a  pleasant  neigh- 
borliness  one  with  another.  However  we 
may  differ  in  other  particulars,  we  are  all 
alike  in  that  we  are  tacitly  pledged  to  the 
"  cause  '*  of  children  ;  it  is  the  desire  of  all 
of  us  that  the  world  be  made  a  more  fit 
place  for  them.  And,  as  we  labor  toward 
the  fulfillment  of  this  desire,  they  are  our 
most  effectual  helpers. 

In  our  wider  efforts  after  social  better- 
ment, they  help  us.   Because  of  them,  we  or- 
ganize ourselves  into  national,  and  state,  and 
municipal  associations  for  the  furtherance  of 
184 


CONCLUSION 

better  living,  —  physical,  mental,  and  moral. 
Through  them,  we  test  each  other's  sin- 
cerity, and  measure  each  other's  strength,  as 
social  servants.  In  our  wider  efforts  this  is 
true.  Is  it  not  the  case  also  when  the  field  of 
our  endeavors  is  narrower  ? 

Several  years  ago,  I  chanced  to  spend  a 
week-end  in  a  suburban  town,  the  popula- 
tion of  which  is  composed  about  equally  of 
"  old  families,"  and  of  foreigners  employed 
in  the  factory  situated  on  the  edge  of  the 
town.  I  was  a  guest  in  the  home  of  a  min- 
ister of  the  place.  Both  he  and  his  wife  be- 
lieved that  the  most  important  work  a 
church  could  do  in  that  community  was 
"settlement "  work.  "  Home-making  classes 
for  the  girls,"  the  minister's  wife  reiterated 
again  and  again ;  and,  "  Classes  in  citizen- 
ship for  the  boys,"  her  husband  made  fre- 
quent repetition,  as  we  discussed  the  matter 
on  the  Saturday  evening  of  my  visit. 

"  Why  don't  you  have  them  ?  "  I  inquired. 

"  We  have  no  place  to  have  them  in,"  the 
minister  replied.  "  Our  parish  has  no  parish- 
house,  and  cannot  afford  to  build  one." 

185 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

"  Then,  why  not  use  the  church  ?  "  I  ven- 
tured. 

"  If  you  knew  the  leading  spirits  in  my 
congregation,  you  would  not  ask  that ! "  the 
minister  exclaimed. 

"  Have  you  suggested  it  to  them  ? "  I 
asked. 

"Suggested!"  the  minister  and  his  wife 
cried  in  chorus.  ^^  Suggested  I '* 

"I  have  besought  them,  I  have  begged 
them,  I  have  implored  them  !  '*  the  min- 
ister continued.  "  It  was  no  use.  They  are 
conservatives  of  the  strictest  type ;  and  they 
cannot  bring  themselves  even  to  consider 
seriously  a  plan  that  would  necessitate  using 
the  church  for  the  meeting  of  a  boys'  politi- 
cal debating  club,  or  a  girls*  class  in  market- 

ing." 

"  Churches  are  so  used,  in  these  days !  ** 
I  remarked. 

"Yes,"  the  minister  agreed;  "but  not 
without  the  sympathy  and  cooperation  of 
the  leading  members  of  the  congregation  !  " 

That  suburban  town  is  not  one  to  which 
I  am  a  frequent  visitor.  More  than  a  year 
i86 


CONCLUSION 

passed  before  I  found  myself  again  in  the 
pleasant  home  of  the  minister.  "  I  must  go 
to  my  Three-Meals-a-Day  Club,"  my  host- 
ess said  shortly  after  my  arrival  on  Satur- 
day afternoon.  "  Would  n't  you  like  to  go 
with  me  ?  " 

"  What  is  it,  and  where  does  it  meet  ?  "  I 
asked. 

"  It  is  a  girls*  housekeeping  class,"  an- 
swered the  minister's  wife  ;  "  and  it  meets 
in  the  church." 

"  The  church  ? "  I  exclaimed.  "  So  the 
'leading  spirits'  have  agreed  to  having^t 
used  for  '  settlement '  work  !  How  did  you 
win  them  over  ?  " 

"  We  did  n't,"  she  replied  ;  "  they  won 
themselves  over,  —  or  rather  the  little  child- 
ren of  one  of  them  did  it." 

When  I  urged  her  to  tell  me  how,  she 
said,  "  We  are  invited  to  that  '  leading 
spirit's  '  house  to  dinner  to-morrow ;  and  you 
can  find  out  for  yourself,  then." 

It  proved  to  bean  easy  thing  to  discover. 
"  I  am  glad  to  see  that,  since  you  have  no 
parish-house,  you  are  using  your  church  for 

187 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

parish-house  activities/*  I  made  an  early  oc- 
casion to  say  to  our  hostess,  after  dinner,  on 
the  Sunday.  "You  were  not  using  it  in  that 
way  when  I  was  here  last ;  it  is  something 
very  new,  is  n't  it  ?  " 

"  It  is,  my  dear,"  said  our  hostess,  —  one 
of  those  of  his  flock  whom  the  minister  had 
described  as  "conservatives  of  the  strictest 
type  ";  "  ^  very  new '  are  the  exact  words  with 
which  to  speak  of  it  !  ** 

"  How  did  it  happen  ?  "  I  asked. 

She  smiled.  "  Our  minister  and  his  wife 
declare  that  my  small  son  and  daughter  are 
mainly  responsible  for  it !  "  she  said.  "They 
began  to  attend  the  public  school  this  au- 
tumn,—  they  had,  up  to  that  time,  been 
taught  at  home.  You  know  what  the  popu- 
lation of  this  town  is,  —  half  foreign.  Even 
in  the  school  in  this  district,  there  are  a  con- 
siderable number  of  foreigners.  I  don*t 
know  why  it  is,  when  they  have  so  many 
playmates  in  their  own  set,  that  my  children 
should  have  made  friends,  and  such  close 
friends,  with  some  of  those  foreign  chil- 
dren 1  But  they  did.  And  not  content  with 
i88 


CONCLUSION 

bringing  them  here,  they  wanted  to  go  to 
their  homes  !  Of  course,  I  could  n't  allow 
that.  I  explained  to  my  boy  and  girl  as  well 
as  I  was  able ;  I  told  them  those  people  did 
not  know  how  to  live  properly ;  that  they 
might  keep  their  children  clean,  because 
they  wouldn't  be  permitted  to  send  them  to 
school  unless  they  did ;  but  their  houses 
were  dirty,  and  their  food  bad.  And  what  do 
you  think  my  children  said  to  me  ?  They 
said,  '  Mother,  have  they  got  to  have  their 
houses  dirty  ?  Have  they  got  to  have  bad 
food  ?  Could  n't  they  have  things  nice,  as  we 
have  ? '  It  quite  startled  me  to  hear  my  own 
children  ask  me  such  things ;  it  made  me 
think.  I  told  my  husband  about  it ;  it  made 
him  think,  too.  You  know,  we  are  always 
hearing  that,  if  we  are  going  to  try  to  im- 
prove the  living  conditions  of  the  poor,  we 
must  '  begin  with  the  children,*  —  begin  by 
teaching  them  better  ways  of  living.  Our 
minister  and  his  wife  have  all  along  been 
eager  to  teach  these  foreign  children.  We 
have  no  place  to  teach  them  in,  except  our 
church.  It  was  rather  a  wrench  for  my  hus- 
189 


THE  AMERICAN  CHILD 

band  and  me, — giving  oik*  approval  to  using 
a  church  for  a  club-house.  But  we  did  it. 
And  we  secured  the  consent  of  the  rest  of  the 
congregation,  —  we  told  them  what  our  chil- 
dren had  said.  We  were  not  the  only  ones 
who  thought  the  children  had,  to  use  an  old- 
fashioned  theological  term,  '  been  directed ' 
in  what  they  had  said  !  "  she  concluded. 

The  children  had  said  nothing  that  the 
minister  had  not  said.  Was  it  not  less  what 
they  had  said  than  the  fact  of  their  saying  it 
that  changed  the  whole  course  of  feeling  and 
action  in  that  parish  ? 

On  the  days  when  it  is  our  lot  to  share 
in  doing  large  tasks,  the  children  help  us. 
What  of  the  days  which  bring  with  them 
only  a  "  petty  round  of  irritating  concerns 
and  duties  ? "  Do  they  not  help  us  then,  too  ? 

In  a  house  on  my  square,  there  lives  a 
little  girl,  three  years  old,  who,  every  morn- 
ing at  about  eight  o'clock,  when  the  front 
doors  of  the  square  open,  and  the  workers 
come  hurrying  down  their  steps,  appears  at 
her  nursery  window,  —  open  except  in  very 
stormy  weather.  "  Good-bye  !  *'  she  calls  to 
190 


CONCLUSION 

each  one,  smiling,  and  waving  her  small 
hand,  "good-bye  !" 

"  Good-bye  !  "  we  all  call  back,  "  good- 
bye!" We  smile,  too,  and  wave  a  hand  to 
the  little  girl.  Then,  almost  invariably,  we 
glance  at  each  other,  and  smile  again,  to- 
gether. Thus  our  day  begins. 

We  are  familiar  with  the  thought  of  our 
devotion  to  children.  As  individuals,  and  as 
a  nation,  our  services  to  the  children  of  our 
land  are  conspicuously  great.  "  You  do  so 
much  for  children,  in  America  !  "  It  is  no 
new  thing  to  us  to  hear  this  exclamation. 
We  have  heard,  we  hear  it  so  often  !  All  of 
us  know  that  it  is  true.  We  are  coming  to 
see  that  the  converse  is  equally  true ;  that 
the  children  do  much  for  us,  do  more  than  we 
do  for  them  ;  do  the  best  thing  in  the  world, 
—  make  us  who  are  so  many,  one ;  keep  us, 
who  are  so  diverse,  united  ;  help  us,  whether 
our  tasks  be  great  or  small,  to  "  go  to  our 
labor,  smiling.'' 

THE    END 


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